


Les Amis et les Amoureux

by lori (zakhad), zakhad



Series: Faire de l'avenir un bon passé [3]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-02 20:47:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12734019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakhad/pseuds/lori, https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakhad/pseuds/zakhad
Summary: William T Riker had a lot to learn about relationships. At least he eventually figures it out.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Will has a different trajectory than the others in this series. Encounter at Farpoint makes no sense in quite a few ways, key among them the fact that they would not send a handful of key officers to Farpoint and then launch the ship to go get them -- the crew would report for duty and be deployed on the vessel they are assigned to. But I'll stick to canon for a while just the same.
> 
> This will cover a slightly different sequence of episodes than the other two stories in this series.

Will wished he'd been able to make it to McKinley Station for the launch. He was certain that meeting his new commanding officer would have been different -- more congenial and allowing him a chance to feel out the beginnings of a relationship with a legendary man he hoped to emulate.

Picard, in the middle of a situation verging on a crisis, was terse and incredibly focused. The intensity radiating from him was amazing. Will navigated his first day carefully, answering questions, giving input, following orders -- observing, the crew and the captain.

And then she was there -- the captain including her in a meeting with Zorn. She attempted contact telepathically -- he could tell she still had strong feelings about him, understood the message, initially responded to it in kind -- there was potential there and she was open to rekindling what they'd had. But he set it aside. They were in the middle of the mission. The captain was there, between them in the turbolift.

At the end of it all, after the lifeforms were released from the Bandi and Q was gone, Will finally went off shift. His things weren't yet in his quarters -- he didn't care about the spartan environment, he was exhausted after being hyperfocused on the situation all day. He stumbled through a sonic shower, put on some comfortable, bland pajamas that the replicator spat out in his size, asked for a fresh uniform for the following morning, and sat down to injest the first meal that came to mind -- pot roast, potatoes, mixed vegetables, and a piece of dutch apple pie. He hardly tasted it.

Only in bed, staring up at the viewport overhead, did he allow his thoughts to turn back to the problem of Deanna Troi. It was difficult to think about -- on the one hand, he had recognized the strength of the connection that remained between them, and been startled. This was worlds and years away from the drama of her mother, her traditions, her very-much-younger self who had been so volatile -- the woman he'd met today was a quieter, more serious version of the one he'd been engaged to a lifetime ago.

He groaned. He had been so caught up in her before. He'd caught himself thinking about leaving Starfleet at one point. It all felt like so long ago, when he thought about it from time to time through the years, except one look in those dark, black-on-black eyes and one touch mind to mind and it all came flooding back -- she could be a huge distraction if he let it be.

No, he had to establish himself first, as an officer. He had to focus on the work, and building working relationships with the crew, particularly his commanding officer. Then if something happened with Deanna, it would be less disruptive.

He slept fitfully but he did sleep -- when he woke two hours before alpha shift, he gave up on going back to sleep and went down to the gymnasium, and found that it was a marvel in itself. Plenty of ways to stay fit. He stretched, lifted, ran the track a few laps, took a shower, returned to quarters for breakfast. And then he went to his office on deck two, and sent messages arranging meetings with the senior staff. Deanna would be third in line after the operations manager, Data, and the security officer, Yar.

He replicated himself another cup of coffee after Yar left. The brief conversation told him it would take time to get Yar to loosen up with him -- she was crisply formal with him, clearly nervous about something, and he brought up her service record again to review. He was half done reading when the annunciator let him know Deanna was there right on time.

"Counselor," he exclaimed as she came in with a placid smile in place. "Have a seat. Can I get you something?"

"No, thank you." She sat down -- today she wore a blue dress that was precisely the color of the water on Risa, a gorgeous turquoise, smoothing the skirt over her thighs and folding her hands in her lap. Somehow her hair was gathered into a neat knot on top of her head. Her demeanor was as formal as he wanted to be, though there was a quiver in his gut at the sight of her.

"I wanted to meet with everyone individually, now that things have settled down and we're en route to the next mission," he said, as he had with the prior two officers.

"Of course," she said, her head coming up slightly.

"You came aboard before the ship was launched," he began with a pleasant smile. "How are you settling in?"

"I'm fine, Commander. I think I'll enjoy this posting. I'm looking forward to working with the families, and with Captain Picard -- and this is an amazing ship."

"Yes, I haven't had the full tour yet but I'm looking forward to that. Everything as it should be in your office, your quarters?"

"It is. I appreciate that I was allowed to choose the color scheme before they finished decorating. How about you, Commander? Have you settled into your quarters? The quartermaster can get your things out of cargo whenever you're ready."

"I'll get around to that, thanks." He paused, considering what to say and deciding just to say it. "I'm sure it'll be the case even if I don't make the point of saying it, but I want us to be on the same page. I think we need to be professionals first. Friends. Obviously, we'll all be good friends."

"Yes." She wasn't upset, or trying to conceal anything, that he could tell. It was enough to put him on his guard.

"The captain told me that he's expecting me to be a liaison with the families, for him. He doesn't appear to want anything to do with the kids."

Deanna tilted her head slightly at that. "His focus has been on doing his duty all his life - of course he's had no experience with kids. Starfleet only just now started to allow families on ships."

"What do you think of him?"

A slow blink, at that. "The captain? I think he is more than capable -- he enjoys adventure, discovering new worlds, unraveling mysteries. We have a great deal to learn from him, I think. I'm looking forward to our ten year mission."

That was, he thought, an answer the captain would approve of -- carefully considered and on point, no extraneous information. No personal content. Professional.

Of course, Will had just put forth the expectation of professionalism.

"So am I," he replied, grinning now with a little more of his characteristic good humor. "I think I'll challenge him to a game of velocity."

"He'll appreciate that, I'm sure. I have no doubt that you and he will be good friends." She leaned forward slightly. "May I be dismissed, sir? I have appointments this afternoon."

"Of course. See you later."

Will watched her leave his office and tried to think of how he might have done that differently. He had half-expected her to react emotionally, cry, at least appear disappointed that he wasn't going down the road she'd attempted to take them down at first -- he wasn't sure if he should be relieved or upset that she hadn't.

He had a few hours before he was supposed to meet with the engineer, so he wandered up to the bridge to see what was going on. As with any starship in transit to somewhere at warp, not a lot; the captain was, however, seated in his place in the center of it all, and glanced up at him as Will went to his own place.

"Good morning, Number One," he said.

"Good morning, sir. Everything ship shape?"

"In Bristol fashion," Picard said, as close to affable as Will had seen him get.

"I'm meeting individually with senior staff today -- I want to visit the departments as well, get some face time with the crew.

"Good. Excellent. You'll let me know, of course, if you have any concerns?"

Will gave a curt nod. "I will, sir." He watched Picard settle back in his chair, facing forward as if the viewer held some fascinating scene instead of a view of the stars, and gazed at that viewer himself.

There were going to be differences, he told himself. He'd been on several vessels so far and each captain had a different way of dealing with everything, each vessel had its own unique atmosphere. But so far, the _Enterprise_ had been unlike the others. His last posting had been the _Hood_ with Captain DeSoto, a friend of Picard's -- he'd even met Picard once a couple of years ago, when he had come aboard briefly to visit with DeSoto. It'd been part of the reason he had been interested in this posting.

The man sitting next to him now in the new uniform was a stiffer, less chatty version of the man his former captain had summarized as being "stiff, but approachable." Something told him DeSoto would have had a different opinion, had he served with Picard as a subordinate instead of going through the Academy with him and briefly being stationed together somewhere along the way.

It was going to be an interesting ten years. If he could just navigate the first few months successfully....


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize that Guinan did not join til second season, btw. I added her into the rewrite.

Will settled into the widely-varying, random schedule of a Starfleet officer. Life on a starship vacillated between crises that lasted days to weeks, to quiet and methodical missions that could draw themselves out over a month or two, to periods of travel time during which the rest and relaxation that were sometimes not possible during missions could happen.

They were on their way to a starbase, to pick up a delegation to deliver to some border world. The captain was taking a few days of medical leave after the recent encounter with the Ferengi Bok, at the doctor's insistence. She'd repaired some fractures and a broken tibia, and was monitoring some minor brain damage caused by the device Bok had used to control him. Will left the bridge to Data, deciding to check on Picard as he hadn't heard from him in a day and a half. Unusual, even while the captain was off duty, for him to not check in at least once a day.

He had to wait for a few moments outside the door of the captain's quarters, and was starting to be concerned by the time the door finally opened. "Captain?" He took a few steps, hesitating just inside.

"Number One, good afternoon," Picard exclaimed, closing a book and setting it aside. "Something wrong?"

Will came over and perched on the edge of a chair. "No, just checking in. How are you doing?"

"I've been caught up in a good book today. Those residual headaches I was having have finally gone." Picard smiled -- it was never as warm, welcoming or happy as it could have been, but over the past months Will had been learning his captain's ways, his 'tells' so to speak. There was often a tension in him that Will didn't understand.

"Glad to hear it. I hope you'll be back on the bridge for our next mission?"

Picard's smile turned rueful. "That depends entirely upon the doctor and the counselor, at this point."

"I understand their caution," Will said. "It was alarming to have our captain trying to attack us."

Picard's longsuffering expression said he thought it was paranoia, but understood the concern. "I'm sure I'll be back in a day or so. I'm fine, Number One."

"The Ferengi have been a problem for some time. I heard there would be a diplomatic effort made again soon?"

"I prefer optimism, as you know, but I have to say I can't be optimistic about succeeding in such an effort."

Will shrugged sympathetically. "I know, sir. I'm right there with you. I'm hoping we can succeed just the same."

"I'll hope so -- so far our encounters with them haven't been promising."

"I was considering a holodeck visit this afternoon -- would you like to come?" He'd invited Picard before, and they had played velocity -- the captain was a decent marksman, clearly he had kept up with target practice over the years. "I thought I would try something other than a game -- there's a long list of role-playing adventures to be had."

"So I've been told. What did you have in mind?"

"Well, there are historical dramas, mysteries, romances -- I thought perhaps a tour of Elizabethan England, or the early North American colonies. Perhaps the Martian colonies?"

Picard raised an eyebrow, which usually meant he was intrigued. "How do you feel about ancient Rome?"

"That could also work. We could have Worf come along, he'd appreciate the gladiators."

"I'd like to, but the counselor will be coming by around fourteen hundred hours. I have the feeling that skipping appointments with her might be detrimental to my hope of going back to work soon," he said apologetically.

"So we'll wait til fifteen hundred. I'll be in holodeck two," Will said, grinning. He stood and tapped two fingers to his forehead in a jaunty salute and turned to go.

His next destination was the lounge, Ten Forward. Usually for lunch it wasn't so busy. As he strolled in he waved to a few lieutenants and headed for the table in front of a viewport where the counselor waited for him. She glanced up at him as he sat down.

"I already ordered something to drink but I was waiting for you to get lunch," she said.

Will glanced at the bar -- Guinan was coming around it with a glass, and she brought it across to put it in front of Deanna. "Anything for you, Commander?"

"A ham sandwich, with Swiss cheese and mustard. And some Heifeweizen."

"I'll have a blue leaf salad, thanks, Guinan," Deanna said. Guinan nodded and drifted away again. Deanna glanced at him skeptically. "Beer, at lunch?"

"It's synthale - no alcohol. Thanks for coming." He'd tried to get her to have lunch with him before, but there had always been a conflicting appointment. Or so she said.

"What did you want to talk about?" She picked up the tall frosty glass of blue liquid, sipping.

"Nothing in particular. We just haven't had a chance to catch up. It's been one thing after the next -- Starfleet," he said lightly with a grin and a shrug.

Deanna gazed at him with such an unreadable expression that he started to wonder. A smile flitted across her lips then. "Catch up?"

"Sure. What's happened since the last time we spoke?" He lounged in the chair, though it wasn't of a style that facilitated relaxation. There had been sporadic conversations over the first four years via subspace, then nothing for the past six years. He'd let it go under the impression that she wasn't interested any more and neither one of them had the time.

"The usual, of course. Starfleet."

"You were promoted a few times since the last time we spoke, you have commendations -- something happened that you've become this serious, quiet woman with beautiful, tragic eyes."

She snorted ungracefully, rolled her eyes -- covered her mouth with her hand. The amusement died away again. "Oh, Will. Some things never change."

"What?" he blurted.

"Are you still trying to become a captain? I understand you turned down a promotion to be here."

It took him aback. Guinan returned, placed a plate in front of each of them, and moved away again. "I did," he confirmed, uncertain how she might have known that.

The intensity in her eyes as she stared at him now was even more startling. He knew she was intelligent, she'd always been, but she'd never had this demeanor in his memory -- was she studying him? "I find that interesting considering you once insisted you were going to beat Kirk's record. Taking a ten year mission as a first officer will mean delaying and failing in that goal."

Will shrugged again, trying to understand what she was doing. "You always said there was more to life than beating some subjective milestone -- are you surprised that I listened to you for once?"

At that she smiled -- the kind of smile that put lights in her eyes, and made his heart skip a couple beats -- his memory had failed him. She was beautiful, much more so than he'd remembered, and he was certain that he would be able to find a way to bring them together for good.

Except he'd also managed to forget -- and her face changed in a heartbeat. She'd sensed his reaction. Her smile dimmed, all the way back down to the polite minimal warmth of the counselor of the flagship of the Federation. She looked down at the blue-edged leaves of her salad and stabbed up a mouthful, raising it to her lips so elegantly coated in burgundy.

"Are you enjoying your job so far, here on the _Enterprise_?" she asked, in a tone that people usually used to discuss trivialities.

"Of course. I have the best job -- sparring with Worf in our down time, getting to know Captain Picard, having a drink with friends after shift -- traveling to the ends of the universe. Being challenged on every mission. It's what every cadet dreams of when they're at the Academy trying to motivate themselves to finish their warp physics coursework."

"What do you think of the captain?" Again, that tone suggesting it was an innocuous question. But he'd been in counseling before. Assessments were now required annually. He knew counselors had a way of drawing out information. But he reminded himself too, she couldn't be his counselor. "I'm learning a lot from him," he said, trying not to be too casual about it himself. "Sometimes he really surprises me. What do you think -- and I don't mean officially. What do you think of him as a person?"

Warning flashed in her eyes as she glanced at him. She collected a few more leaves and a nut on the tines of her fork, took another bite, chewed.

"He is a person, isn't he?"

The attempted joke fell flat. Another irritated glance -- he couldn't make out what was going on. She wasn't reacting as he'd expected. He ate silently as she did for another few bites, and gave up on conversation of a less personal nature.

"Was it something I said?" he said at last, quietly, sincerely.

"You told me we would be professionals. I am respecting your wishes."

"Oh," he scoffed. He took a moment to assess, to consider her cool manner. "You're upset with me."

"Disappointed, actually," she said. Dropping her fork, she pushed back the chair a few centimeters.

"Deanna, please sit down. I want to understand this."

To his surprise, she did -- stopped rising to go and settled back, and gazed at him with another of those inscrutable expressions.

"You told me once that you can't react to everything you sense, or you would have no career and no friends. I appreciated that and I wish you'd give me the same latitude. I don't want to ruin a friendship and I wasn't lying, when I told you I wanted to keep things professional at first."

That led to a head tilt and an eyebrow twitch. "At first?"

He almost laughed -- this calm, collected version of his former fianceé wasn't at all what he'd expected. "You initiated contact with an obvious expectation. I don't want to rush into anything. You would tell me that's the smart thing to do. You've changed, I've changed. Right?"

"Yes," she said, without going into the lengthy lecture he half-expected -- when she was a student she'd been full of facts and research she could swing around with glee, at a whim.

"I think for the better, too," he added. "I'd like to think I'm more patient than I used to be."

"As would I."

The corners of his mouth twitched; hers did too. No doubt she was thinking as he was of all the arguing they'd done. She might even be thinking of the making up, and the time they'd spent together without arguing.

"Friends?" He extended a hand across the table.

"Friends," she said, taking his hand firmly. And pulled back, without lingering, and picked up her fork, returning her attention to the salad. "Did you ever get the captain to play velocity with you?" The question had less of the diffidence; it was more casual in tone.

"Sure. We were discussing a trip to the holodeck later today, maybe ancient Rome."

"Yes, he's very interested in archeology," she said. "And history. One of his mentors at the Academy was the archeology professor at the time."

"Maybe you should come with us," he suggested, trying not to be startled by the hint that she'd actually had protracted conversations with the reclusive captain who still called him Number One consistently. He'd started to wonder if he needed to explicitly give permission for the captain to use his name.

"When are you planning to go?"

"Fifteen hundred."

"I have a standing appointment then, meeting with my assistant counselor." She shoved aside her plate and reached for her glass again. "Maybe some other day."

"There will be other days -- looking forward to it. You might find some of the programs suit you."

"Only if I am using them with other people." 

Will nodded. "I think we should get the senior staff to do something together. We've gone from crisis to crisis, we're doing something now that isn't a crisis, we should take some time to build cohesion -- get to know each other a little better while we're not in the middle of an alert."

"I agree," Deanna said. "We can discuss this in the next staff meeting -- I'll bring it up with the captain."

"I feel he's the one we particularly need to know better. This last incident with the Ferengi, it was difficult to know just when he became unfit for command -- I think I should have known sooner. Taken command sooner. I should have done it when he ordered me to release the tractor beam on the _Stargazer_."

Deanna didn't react to that other than a slight nod. 

"He ordered the others out of the room before he gave the order. He reduced the likelihood that the order would be disobeyed, by removing officers who were already questioning his fitness for duty."

"Beverly said she didn't like the way she was acting, and regretted letting him carry on, but she also doubted herself as there were no physical indications of a problem," Deanna said. "I'm not sure your guilt is warranted either, in this instance. The fact remains that we will always be seeking balance between knowing when to question orders, and when to follow them. There's a reason this is a major part of the coursework in the officer's ethics class," she said.

"We need to be able to handle such situations faster," Will exclaimed.

Guinan returned and took her plate. "Want anything else?"

"I think I'll pass on dessert today," Deanna said. "I have to be somewhere in a few minutes."

"Another appointment," Will assumed out loud.

"Karate lesson. Tasha gives instruction three times a week."

He nodded, approving. "But in aikido -- I'm taking mok'bara."

Her eyes narrowed. "I see you have some assumptions. Interesting."

"Not at all. I understand Yar is quite proficient with it."

Deanna's smug smile could have goaded him into a retort, when he was younger, but he responded with a smile of his own. She drank the last of her beverage and stood up. "We'll have to meet in a few weeks to start performance reviews."

"I'll look at my schedule. Thanks for lunch."

"See you on the bridge." She headed for the door. He watched her go, thinking that the pantsuit wasn't flattering -- gray and lavender? Not really her colors.

He left Ten Forward himself shortly after, heading for the bridge. Time passed as it usually did -- Geordi was at the helm, and Data was at ops; the two would exchange information as needed and chat about things. Data was full of questions as always and with the captain off the bridge he would divide his attention between the intricacies of human behavior and his console and the readouts on it. Will let them chat unless it became too obvious they were distracted, which didn't happen often. There was a line to walk, with such things.

When he arrived at the captain's door at fifteen hours and four minutes, it opened before he came close enough -- Deanna came out. She was smiling -- somehow he'd expected Picard would be a difficult client. She had to know Will was there, standing in the corridor waiting, but she turned the other direction and walked away sedately. She'd changed out of the pantsuit he'd seen her in earlier, into one of her green dresses. And that tight bun she'd worn on her head was gone -- she'd pulled back her hair from her face in a band, but the dark curls were loose over her shoulders. 

Will watched her going, and the door closed. After a moment he stepped up and touched the panel on the right, and was admitted at once. "Good afternoon, sir," he said smoothly, adopting a polite smile. 

Picard stood up from the couch -- he was wearing a nondescript long-sleeved brown shirt and darker slacks, as he'd been earlier in the day. "Number One. Ready to go?"

"Do we want to adopt a costume consistent with where we are going, or simply be tourists? The holodeck can be programmed for immersive or observational experiences." Nothing seemed any different than expected. But something about Deanna's smile still bothered him. 

"I think this time I'd prefer to be a tourist -- I'd also like to see who's responsible for the simulation, if it's based on the actual ruins in Rome. A friend of mine has done extensive work in the Italian peninsula, excavating old ruins previously discovered when the technology made it possible to locate them before the work started." Picard started out, and Will turned to follow him closely, as he went on to describe the dig he'd participated in when still attending the Academy.

Will made it through an hour on the holodeck, walking in rough-paved streets between citizens that ignored them. It was obvious Picard was well-read in the subject of Rome -- he knew more than the surface details given in a general history class. 

As they left the unsanitary, loud, crowded streets of Ancient Rome for the corridor of the _Enterprise_ , Picard saved the program with a command, then turned to Will. "Next time we should try something immersive. Perhaps a mystery novel?"

"I haven't read a lot of those -- that might be interesting. Should we invite other officers? The counselor and I were just discussing the need to build better relationships between the senior officers. Perhaps solving some mysteries for fun instead of during a red alert would serve."

Picard nodded, but Will had the distinct impression he wasn't entirely pleased with the idea, for some reason. "Perhaps. I'll see you on the bridge in the morning, Number One." 

Will heard the dismissal and stood watching the captain head for the turbolift. "Yes, sir," he mumbled, after the lift doors closed again. Sighing, he started for the lift himself.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hide and Q had some issues but for the most part it's a testament to the Prime Directive that Q doesn't follow, and a less than subtle examination of power corrupting someone. I have a little trouble imagining that savvy, smart Riker who handles the social aspects on the captain's behalf and is surely more mature than he was as a teen is still dumb enough to not understand why people realize they don't want the "gifts" he gives them, but I didn't write the episode... 
> 
> At the beginning of Hide and Q they send Troi home in a shuttle, which was a convenient dodge so he wasn't fulfilling her wish, whatever it was. I'm adjusting that to a conference, which is more likely anyway. If you've signed up for an assignment on a ship that's out exploring the far reaches of the galaxy why would you go all the way home in a shuttle at random? Would it even be possible without spending a month or two away? 
> 
> Also, Wesley is not an officer at any point in this series, regardless of the canon events at the end of Naked Now.

Will had made significant progress, he thought, as the weeks passed. Deanna seemed more at ease each time he had lunch with her, and the captain had at times started to call him by name -- it gave him hope.

The problem was of course that it was a rare occasion that anything went according to plan. Along came Q, and for some reason, the entity chose him to play with. To test, to challenge, to make him squirm.

After Q finally left them alone and the ship was under way, the crisis resolved, Will went off shift and sat in his quarters staring at nothing at all, moping. The annunciator startled him half an hour later. "Come in," he said, sitting up straighter. When Deanna strode in, he blinked -- she hadn't come to his quarters before. She wore her uniform for once but her hair was down around her shoulders.

"I'm back from my conference," she said. "Beverly almost walked me down to see you -- she wasn't telling me why she thought I should. Is everything all right?"

He shook his head wearily. That was enough that she came to sit down -- she left some distance between them on the couch, and regarded him sympathetically.

"Does Beverly know I'm not supposed to be your client?" That had been made clear to him early -- their prior relationship was an ethical complication for her as a counselor, out of her control to change it.

"She does. But I'm not pretending you can be. I can tell you're upset, and I'm your friend, so I thought I would offer a listening ear."

"Has anyone told you what happened while you were gone?"

Deanna shook her head. "You can tell me."

"Q came back. This time, he focused on me."

"So like the first time he interfered -- he put you to the test?" She wasn't smiling now. "You prevailed, obviously."

"In a way, I failed."

"How?"

That led to the story of being given the power to change people, change events, and first feeling restricted by his promise not to use those powers and then feeling shame, that he'd given in to temptation and tried to give people what they wanted. At the end of his narrative, she nodded, her eyes sad.

"It sounds like you assumed you understood what they wanted," she said, sounding exactly like a counselor.

"No, I'm pretty sure after spending time with Wesley that I know he wants to be older. He wants to contribute to missions -- as he did when we were trying to save the ship, while the crew was under the influence of polywater. He wants to be taken seriously, because he knows his contribution is devalued simply because he's underage and not an officer."

Deanna took a deep breath, her chest visibly rising and falling, before responding. "But you said he rejected it. Told you that he would rather get there on his own. Because even though he wants to be older, he's still a child with a great deal left to learn about things other than warp engines and tractor beams -- he may be impatient but that's what teenagers are, a contradiction wrapped in too much energy and prone to big dreams with little awareness of even the first actual steps to achieve them. If you had asked him he might even have told you that he knows better than to think he can just get attention and respect and notoriety without earning them."

"You'll probably tell me, then, that Worf knows better than to think having another Klingon aboard would cure his loneliness."

Deanna nodded slowly. "As a non-human individual on a vessel where there are no other Betazoids, I feel lonely as well, in a different manner than the other non-human crew -- I am separated from the community that I normally feel in a very tangible way around me, when I am on Betazed. Think about what Worf went through, raised on Earth among humans and made very aware at every eye contact that he was separate and among aliens. His loneliness is very different than even another Klingon's would be -- had he been raised on the home world among other Klingons, he would merely be missing others of his kind. As it is, he also misses his family, perhaps feeling shame -- if you ask him he'll tell you about Khitomer. You might have hesitated to ask as humans do, trying to be polite, but I think you should. Suddenly giving him another Klingon doesn't repair his feelings about the House of Mogh, or feeling as though he doesn't belong on Earth or on his home world. Any more than giving me a Betazoid would resolve my absent community -- and I would not want to try to resolve it. That's what I agreed to tolerate, when I joined Starfleet, and if I decide it's more important to change things, I can go home. Ask for a position on Betazed or simply resign, and find another purpose in life. Worf will earn his way back into the Empire, if he decides to go. It's his journey to take."

"Now that I'm not caught up in the middle of being given sudden omnipotence, I suppose that makes more sense than it would have at the time. I was so frustrated.... The captain knew better than I did. I just couldn't see it and I didn't listen to him."

"I suspect you wouldn't have listened to anyone," she commented. "It's easy to think that having such power wouldn't change you. But obviously it did. It opened up possibilities and the first impulse would be to think about that, rationalize taking advantage of it to help your friends be happy." She paused -- it felt like one, anyway, he thought she must have stopped herself short.

"What were you about to say?"

She shook her head. "Whether you want to admit it or not, you're exhausted. And I have a time zone different to reconcile -- I've been awake for eighteen hours now and I'm quite tired myself. Can we talk again tomorrow?"

"Of course." Then it struck him -- what he would ask, if their positions were reversed. "You were going to ask me what I would have done for you. Weren't you?"

She came to her feet, and he followed suit out of reflex. They stood looking at each other. He would have touched her -- perhaps put an arm around her, or taken her hand. But that wasn't where they were, at the moment, and even as the options came to mind, she stepped away, around the far end of the coffee table, away from him. 

"I'll admit to curiosity. But I think it's best that I don't know what you think I want. Good night, Will."

He watched her leave, and though it upset him to hear it, he decided that ultimately he really didn't know what she wanted, either. There were still things that confused him about her -- he had expected some gradual thawing, as they spent time together and enjoyed each other's company. She had indeed showed signs of less formality and a little affection.

But he would think about a next step, a little beyond just being friends, and just as she had done a moment ago she would either put space between them or turn to someone else and bring them into the conversation. It was a subtle, difficult-to-address pattern that he resigned himself to accepting. For whatever reason, she had initially attempted to dive in at warp speed, reversed course away from him and now maintained a steady parallel course at impulse.

So that was probably the answer to what she wanted, for now anyway.

The following morning, after sleeping soundly, he rose and got ready for alpha shift. The captain glanced up at him as he joined him on the bridge. 

"Good morning," Picard said. "Sleep well?"

It was perhaps not the first time he'd expressed concern in some manner, but Will thought there might be sympathy there too. "Surprisingly. I spent too much time ruminating about it but I think that contributed to the exhaustion."

Picard waved a hand vaguely. "There will be those occasions, when you're in command. Sometimes there are simply no real answers, just the best ones you can manage at the time with the information you have."

Will considered thanking him for that -- it was clearly commiseration. But he knew the direct approach would only shut off the conversation. "After we dock at the starbase, what's our schedule?"

"Well, the _Carmichael_  is arriving five hours after we are to drop off the delegation. So there will be a brief interlude for us."

"An opportunity to let the crew have some time on the starbase, and let us visit Teresita Minor on the holodeck?"

Picard frowned, puzzled. "Teresita? Why?"

"Well, it's a lot like Risa, only they have this bar... it offers up the claim that they have every beer in the known galaxy on the menu."

"Oh, I know that's not true," he scoffed. "I've been there. Mr. Data, how many distinct kinds of beer are there in the known galaxy?"

Data swiveled in his chair, cocking his head slightly as he considered the question. "I believe, sir, that it is impossible to know that. Most worlds have a substance of similar constituent components created in a similar fashion that makes them qualify as 'beer.' I would expect that the Romulan Empire and worlds protected under the Prime Directive would all have versions of beer that are impossible to enumerate."

Picard had that twist to his lips that said he was on the verge of losing his patience. Fortunate that Data stopped short of a full encyclopedia on the subject of beer.

"So how about the Federation, instead of the known galaxy?" Will asked, smirking.

"Twenty thousand four hundred and forty-nine," Geordi exclaimed over his shoulder. "According to the bartender in that bar you're talking about."

"I'm not sure I'm up to sampling twenty beers, let alone twenty thousand," Picard said, glancing at Will.

"So we go somewhere else -- there's this place on No-isha Tarnibog that has a fantastic floor show...."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haven is next. I might rewrite dialogue some, because ugh. Season one.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Liberties I've taken with Haven:
> 
> In my version Deanna knows they are coming. While I would not put it past any version of her mother to be all SURPRISE! WEDDING! I don't think the Millers would be like that. Wyatt would call her. And, how the hell does Starfleet just tell civilians where their ships are going to be? Lwaxana is not an ambassador yet. How is a surprise wedding even possible?
> 
> The dialogue in the episode sucks balls. While I can't guarantee anything I can try to do better.
> 
> I understand wanting the gift box to be a surprise, but it's a starship, how do you not identify the thing before you bring it aboard? Maybe it's a remote possibility that Haven would give you a bomb, but DUDE.
> 
> This story is in Riker's point of view - it limits what's told, but we know what happens in Haven. He was there for most of the important bits.
> 
> Transcript here: http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/105.htm  
> Last time I looked, TNG is streaming on all the major outlets. Hulu, Netflix, Amazon and CBS All Access.

Will put up his feet on the table and groaned. He'd worked out a little too hard with Worf that afternoon. He had sore shoulders from swinging weapons that were on the heavy side for humans -- but it wasn't bad enough to bother with sickbay. It would be better by morning.

"Yar to Riker," came the first interruption of the evening. "Per protocol, I'm informing you of a request to beam aboard. We're in transporter room one."

"On my way." They were in orbit around Haven, and there might be a landing party tomorrow, but there was nothing scheduled until then. It was unusual enough that he decided to go see what this was about.

Yar was standing next to O'Brien at the console when he arrived. "Do we know who it is?"

"It's not a who, sir," Tasha said. She glanced behind him when the door opened again and Deanna came in. She wore the gray pantsuit, and her hair was still up on top of her head even though it was after hours. Her eyes were gleaming strangely and it was clear she was in distress.

He didn't have time to respond to it. "Bring it aboard, Lieutenant," Deanna said calmly.

Tasha too was troubled by the emotional reaction from her friend -- she and Deanna had become good friends, and it wasn't like Deanna to be so obviously emotional. Tasha nodded to O'Brien, and he initiated the beam.

A gold box with a face materialized on the transporter platform. The face came alive, grinning maniacally and speaking in a high tenor. "I hold a message for Deanna Troi. Lwaxana Troi and the honourable Miller family will soon arrive. The momentous day is close at hand. Rejoice!" The front popped off, spilling many colored stones across the platform around the box.

Tasha was gaping open-mouthed. Will snapped his own mouth shut, upon realizing he was doing the same. He turned to Deanna to find her sadly staring at the box. After a few silent moments, she glanced at O'Brien. "Chief, could you beam this to my quarters?"

"Of course, Counselor."

Deanna nodded and turned around to leave.

Will hurried after her, recovering himself a little more. In the corridor he came up alongside her as she headed for the lift. "What's going on, Deanna?"

"Do you remember when we were trying to plan the wedding, when Mother ranted at me about my obligations to the family and the promise I made?"

"I try to forget it, but yeah. She was a little out of her head."

"The promise she was talking about was something my parents put in place when I was very young. I was genetically bonded with the son of my father's best friend, with the intent that we would be married."

It floored him. Was this why she'd been so hesitant these past months? Why she wouldn't let him get closer? "I -- don't understand. Why didn't you tell me about this before?"

They went in the lift and faced front, and he noticed a tear on her cheek. She asked for deck seven. But she was resolutely avoiding meeting his eyes. "I thought the Millers wouldn't go through with it. I haven't heard from them in years -- they moved away, to some colony, after Daddy died. I thought they would never contact me or follow through. Especially since his mother hates my mother."

"Who expects a small child to keep such a promise?" Deanna would have had to be younger than seven -- her father had died that long ago.

She gave him a sarcastic look, as if he wasn't thinking at all. "I don't understand it myself. But they are waiting on Haven. Wyatt contacted me last week to ask where we should meet for the ceremony."

"Halt turbolift," Will snapped. He fumed silently for a moment. "Why are you facilitating this? You're not even angry."

"I haven't decided what to do yet. I'm going to meet the Millers, meet Wyatt, and see how things go, talk to them about it."

"You're actually considering a marriage to someone you haven't even met?" He stopped himself, hearing the belligerence in his voice and the volume he was achieving. He was glad they were in a private place. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I shouldn't raise my voice. I just don't understand why you aren't rejecting this. Your mother can't force you to do this!"

She calmed a little, the ire that had risen in her face subsiding now that he'd repented of shouting at her. "I'm doing as we do with every mission. I need more information to understand, to make a decision."

"But this isn't a mission, Deanna, it's your future you're talking about."

"Then I should be very careful, shouldn't I?" She rolled her eyes and swiped at her cheeks with her fingers, trying to stop crying. "Computer, resume turbolift."

He tried to calm down, as they finished the short ride to deck seven, and followed her out of the lift. She strode out at a quicker pace than her usual and passed her door, went to the captain's door instead farther down the corridor, requested admittance. He hesitated, and she glanced at him as the door opened for her -- and went through.

Will stood in the corridor staring at the closed door for a moment, then went on to his own quarters.

After a night spent trying to sleep, he reported for duty on the bridge and found the captain in his ready room. Picard didn't greet him as usual, watched him coming in with a serious face, and leaned forward, elbows on his desk.

"I presume you've heard," Picard intoned.

"I'm having difficulty believing it's true -- but some sort of traditional wedding gift was beamed aboard last night, and she doesn't sound happy but she's meeting with them anyway." Will sat down and watched Picard go into the alcove at the back of the ready room, then return with cups of coffee. He took his as Picard slid it across his desk toward him.

"Yes, she's already beamed down. She asked if she could bring them aboard for a tour of the ship later. As if there would be any question."

Will snorted, thinking about Lwaxana Troi, and how shocked the captain would be when he met her. "She can't do this."

"I'm concerned, but if she chooses to follow her own customs, it's her right to do so."

"But you don't know her mother. I think there's more to it than you're aware," Will exclaimed.

"You're saying that she's somehow being forced into this?" Picard said, showing some alarm. The captain was a staunch advocate for humanoid rights, Will knew, and also he'd shown some signs of some affection for Deanna, despite his general standoffishness.

"If she brings her mother aboard, you'll understand what I mean."

Concern remained in Picard's eyes, but he sat back and thought for a minute. "I know that parents can exert quite a bit of power over us. Deanna has hinted that her mother disapproves of her career choice, and that she can be manipulative, but I can't imagine she would allow even her mother to sway her to do anything she didn't want to do."

"You'll have to meet her mother to understand," Will repeated.

"Transporter room to Riker," came O'Brien's voice over the comm system. "Counselor Troi and four others have beamed aboard the ship."

"Thank you, Chief." Will waited for the soft tone that denoted the channel closing. "The countdown begins. She'll probably start in the arboretum and make her way to the bridge."

"Given what you've said, I can't claim to look forward to meeting her mother. But it should be interesting." He sighed, and picked up his coffee for a long draw.

They moved to the bridge after finishing the coffee and were seated at their stations talking casually about Haven when the lift opened. The torrent of narrative spoken in the high-pitched, louder-than-needed tones of Lwaxana Troi burst forth the instant the doors parted, disrupting Data's polite recitation of things to see on the planet.

" -- are having a Betazoid ceremony, naturally, we couldn't possibly settle for the dreadful excuse for a ceremony they have aboard these things," she sang out. "Oh, here we are on the bridge! The captain should be here!"

Picard was wide-eyed, frozen in place, and Will did his best to keep a straight face. If he said and did nothing in Lwaxana's direction her own momentum should spare him, but the captain unfortunately couldn't be spared. 

By the time the group came down to them, Deanna leading the way and looking like she was marching to certain death, Picard had stood up, tugged his uniform straight unnecessarily, and Will came up out of his chair as well. "Counselor," Picard said genially, with a ghost of a smile. 

"Mother, this is Captain Picard, and Commander Riker," she said. Forcing a smile, she turned to look as the last of her group came to a halt behind her. "Captain, this is my mother -- "

"Lwaxana Troi," her mother exclaimed, waving her hands in what appeared to be random flourishes but was likely a traditional greeting, "I am Lwaxana Troi. Daughter of The Fifth House, Holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx, Heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed."

"I am honored to meet you," Picard said with a slight bow. 

"As well you should be," Lwaxana shrilled with a broad smile and another flourish of both arms. "And I -- "

"And this is Mr. and Mrs. Miller," Deanna almost shouted over the top of her mother's exuberance. "Their son, Wyatt. Please forgive my mother, she's quite excited to be here."

Picard cast a wary glance at Will, but recovered quickly, stepped to the left trying to position himself to acknowledge the older couple in plain dress and their son, who looked a little shocked himself and seemed to be watching Lwaxana's arm sweeps and ready to dive out of the way at any second. "A pleasure to meet you, Mr. -- "

"SO this is the flagship of the Federation," cried Lwaxana, coming about and almost wrapping the captain in one of her incredibly-long sleeves. She'd worn a brilliant gown in all colors of the rainbow, sparkling in the light especially as she moved, and her hair was piled in layers with ringlets dangling all around. Gaudy earrings at least six inches long jingled quietly as she turned about. "It's certainly bigger than any of the other bridges that I've visited -- that should say something, I've traveled broadly over the known galaxy, and -- oh, my dear, what are you?" She lunged toward ops, at Data, who sat staring at her with awe. Geordi at the helm was studiously ignoring their guests until spoken to and possibly hoping to not be spoken to.

Deanna exchanged a look with Will that said she had been imagining shoving her mother out an airlock already. She stepped around behind her mother and waited for an opportunity. Lwaxana was repeatedly asking Data what he was, in between observing that she couldn't sense a thing from him -- Data would open his mouth and close it again as her stream of questions wouldn't cease long enough for an answer.

"Lieutenant-Commander Data is our second officer," Deanna exclaimed over her mother's questions. "He's an android, Mother. He has no organic neural networks for you to sense. Why don't I show you the observation lounge?"

"Well, I'm not sure why I would want to see it, dear," Lwaxana crooned. She clasped her hands in front of her and turned a beatific smile on her only child. "But if you think I should." 

Deanna pointed, and Lwaxana preceded her through the door, and Deanna glanced back at them with rolled eyes and unclenched her hands as she followed her mother out of sight. Muted conversation was barely audible through the closed door -- that meant shouting, as the room was designed to be soundproof.

"A pleasure to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Miller," the captain repeated at a normal volume.

"Thank you," Mr. Miller exclaimed. He stepped forward and shook Picard's hand. "It's an honor, sir. This is my wife Victoria and my son Wyatt -- please call me Steven."

"Mrs. Troi is obviously very excited about the wedding," Will said with a pleasant smile. "Have you ever been aboard a starship before?"

"No, we haven't had the opportunity," Mrs. Miller exclaimed. 

"Then the captain should give you a tour, as I doubt you've been able to hear anything Deanna might have said about the ship, and I'll take Mrs. Troi on a separate tour -- we can all meet for lunch in the dining room on deck two. If that's acceptable to you, Captain?"

"A capital idea, Number One," Picard exclaimed. He leaned a little closer and muttered, "Thank you."

They left the bridge immediately, with the captain already talking about their ten year mission and pausing at the back near the lift to show them the dedication plaque, so they were gone when the observation lounge door opened again and Deanna came out the bridge was quiet, empty, and Will sat at the conn. Geordi and Data were facing forward and focused on their consoles as if their lives depended on it.

"The captain felt that delaying the Miller's tour would delay lunch -- he went on ahead," Will said. Rising to his full height, he stood at attention and smiled with great determination at Lwaxana. "Would your mother enjoy a visit to engineering?" He had already checked and knew that the captain had taken the Millers to sickbay, which likely meant a tour of the adjoining labs and the sciences division on the deck below, as well as the holodecks. All the power-intensive facilities were clustered on those decks above engineering. And he had no doubt the captain would be checking on their location from time to time and strategically conducting his tour that way.

Deanna didn't call him out on the lie, and actually looked grateful. "I think you'd like engineering, the light of the warp engine would make your dress sparkle," she said in the fake-cheerful way she hated to be. 

"Whatever you wish, my dear," Lwaxana bubbled in her own fake-cheerful way. She grabbed Deanna's arm and marched for the lift, and Will followed. 

The things he did to ensure the safety of his captain... but he was certain the day was far from done, so far as that went.


	5. Chapter 5

Will walked Deanna and her mother through corridors toward engineering. He was tempted to simply keep walking and spare the engineers, but knew that despite her ongoing semi-monologue, Lwaxana actually paid attention most of the time.

"Main engineering," he announced over her as she told Deanna about the planet on which she and Deanna's father had honeymooned. From Deanna’s expression, she’d heard it before. They approached the large doors and they opened with the dramatic groan and sigh of the pneumatics before them.

MacDougal came toward them as they wandered in -- Lwaxana was looking up at the vaulted ceilings, and the warp core that extended up to the deck above, and so Will made a quick slashing motion with his hand at the chief engineer, giving his head a quick shake. She nodded and veered right instead to some panels on that side of engineering.

"This is where the engineers focus most of their time," he informed Lwaxana as she turned from her examination of the room. “Maintaining the engines, of course.”

"That's fine, dear, it's very impressive," she exclaimed, surprising him. "I don't suppose you have a spa? Perhaps a salon? You know, I need to be at my very best for my daughter's wedding after all. And I'm getting quite tired of all this walking about -- do your elevators not take you closer to where you need to be? I would think with a ship this advanced that you might have a more efficient method of being where you need to go. Why not just beam yourself about?"

Rather than actually answer that question, which he knew would end with yet more questions that had nothing to do with it, he responded to the first question. "The salon is on deck four. Would you like to see if it suits your needs?”

“Why, yes, I would,” Lwaxana announced as if it were the best idea she’d ever heard. “Thank you, Commander. It’s so nice to find someone who is so attentive to my needs.”

Will didn’t like the way she was looking at him -- she was actually looking directly at him, with a smile that verged on predatory, and so he turned and escaped toward the doors. “This way,” he announced officiously.

“It’s a very nice salon,” Deanna said happily.

“They must be good at what they do, it takes a lot to work with your hair, dear, and it’s looking much better than it used to -- what a time we had with it when you were younger! It was forever in knots and tangled up!”

Deanna suffered the ten minute description of her hair, as it had been when she was a child, then a teen, then the lament began about the day she’d cut it -- the curls had fallen almost to the ground, it had shone in the sun with such luxurious highlights -- Will lost track of the adjectives and tuned it out riding in the lift, escorted them to the door of the salon, then introduced them to Mr. Mott.

Lwaxana’s attention shifted to the barber and she went into overdrive about what she wanted for the wedding of her daughter -- fortunately Mr. Mott had at his disposal a padd full of hairstyles and a catalog of colors and highlights, and quickly provided it. Deanna hung back from the action to finally speak to Will.

“Thank you for doing this. I’m not sure I would have a job, if she made the captain want to yell at her as much as I’ve been wanting to.”

“I remember how much you ‘enjoyed’ your mother’s company. Do you think this will keep her busy for a while? We were supposed to talk to the authorities on Haven to get clearance so we can send some of the crew down for leave. I should check in.”

Deanna glanced over -- Mr. Mott was putting a drape over Lwaxana, who was still talking nonstop, and went to get one of his rolling carts full of implements of hairdressing. “I think we can leave her here.”

“I’m going to the bridge then. Are you coming?”

She started down the corridor with him, but said, “I’m going to find the Millers. I haven’t apologized to them for Mother’s behavior quite enough, I think. She was incredibly rude to Mrs. Miller.”

“I hope you don’t think I’m a terrible person for hoping she completely enrages them and makes them leave.”

Deanna stopped in her tracks and forced him to also stop as she stood there while he took another few steps. She glared at him for a few seconds too long for comfort.

“You can’t do this, Deanna.“

She lunged a step toward him and stopped, shaking her head and glaring at the carpet. “I can do as I wish,” she said in a low, intense manner that startled him. “I haven’t made a decision yet. But I would appreciate your support regardless of what decision that will be.”

He didn’t speak for fear of triggering her temper further. No doubt she understood exactly what he felt, anyway.

Her head came up and she looked him in the eye. “If you can’t support my choices, don’t bother to call yourself my friend.” Deanna spun on her heel and marched off, shaking her head again.

Will exhaled noisily and spent a moment standing there with his hands on his head, trying to calm down. It gave her time to be gone, by the time he got to the turbolift and caught the next empty car.

The bridge was quiet, and his officers were jumpy. Geordi's head spun about and he relaxed at once upon seeing Will. Tasha nodded, smiling a little, as he paused next to her at the security station. "Guess Deanna wasn't exaggerating about her mom," Tasha muttered.

"Oh, no."

"They were talking about a wedding when their party beamed aboard," Tasha continued. "Is she supposed to marry the son? It didn't seem like she even knows him. Did you know she was engaged?"

"No," Will snapped, probably more abruptly than he should have -- certainly more than Tasha deserved. But it set off another cascade of things to be angry about. She'd agreed to marry him, while engaged to Wyatt, if this 'genetic bonding' was what it sounded like. He strode down the bridge to the conn. "Has there been any communication from Haven?"

"No, sir," Tasha said in her all-business voice.

"We had a contact when we entered orbit and now it's nearly twenty-four hours -- maybe they're waiting for us?"

The lift opened again, and the captain returned with the Miller family unexpectedly. "Number One," he exclaimed, leading the way down to the center of the bridge. Only the older two Millers were with him, Will noticed.

"I was just checking to see if we'd heard anything from the planet. No contact yet."

"Well, let's head for lunch -- where is Mrs. Troi?"

"She was very approving of the salon and stayed to have her hair done. Shall we?"

"Thank goodness," Mrs. Miller exclaimed.

"Victoria," her husband scolded gently.

Will followed them back to the lift, smiling a little at their frustration with Lwaxana. Picard came up behind him. It was a tight fit in the lift but a short ride to deck two. As they approached the captain's private dining room, Will went in first and went to the replicator. "What can I get for you, Mrs. Miller?"

They were sitting down with their meals when Deanna arrived with Wyatt, confirming Will's hunch that she'd finally been able to talk to him. She was avoiding his eyes and sat next to Mrs. Miller, while Wyatt sat across from her next to his father.

"Deanna, now that we're able to actually talk about things, I wanted to ask you if you really wish to follow through with this," Mrs. Miller said, turning from her plate of food to smile at Deanna.

Will caught himself holding his breath. He picked up his glass and busied himself with his meal. He noticed Picard, sitting at the head of the table, was doing the same.

"I was talking to Wyatt about that," Deanna said slowly. "I'm not certain what I want."

"I told her about the dreams, Mother."

Will studied the pile of greens on his plate and waited for hints at what that could mean. He glanced at Picard; the captain appeared oblivious. That sounded like a good tactic. And his food made a decent preoccupation to focus on.

"I thought you stopped having those dreams," Mr. Miller exclaimed, turning to look at his son, his fork hovering over his plate.

"I stopped talking about them." Wyatt was a thinner version of his father, with lighter hair. He smiled tentatively across at Deanna. It made Will uncomfortable that she smiled back. She glanced at Will, looked down at the table, stopped smiling. 

"They're just dreams," Mrs. Miller said mildly. "Dear, I'm sure he was simply trying to imagine what you were like."

"I'm not sure you're right. When you were on Betazed, did anyone explain to you the way we conceptualize relationships with others?" Deanna asked.

Mr. Miller stopped eating and looked at her, concerned. "You think there might actually be something more to his dreams of this mysterious woman he's never met? How could that possibly be? He's not telepathic at all. I would expect that of someone who was, maybe a Vulcan or Betazoid, but... he's been convinced since he was small that this woman was you. We told him about the genetic bonding because he continually talked about a girl, seeing her in his mind, because we thought that would be the only reason he might experience something like that."

Will refocused on his plate with determination not to let anyone know he was as frustrated as he was feeling. Anyone who couldn't sense it, at least. He heard Deanna sigh, then she said, "Now that you see me, and you know that this person you are dreaming about is not me... do you still feel that she is your soulmate and that you should find her? Because I understand how it can be -- being drawn to someone and feeling strongly that he or she is the one you are meant to be with, for the rest of your life. If you still feel that way about her, you should go find her."

The captain shifted in his seat and reached for his wine glass. He wasn't comfortable with this, but was likely torn between staying and leaving as Will was.

"I don't know," Wyatt said at last. "I think we should talk some more."

"After lunch," Mr. Miller said. Will agreed silently. 

Mrs. Miller turned to the captain then. "You mentioned there was an arboretum? I'd like to see it. We could spend some time there, after lunch, while Wyatt and Deanna are discussing things."

"Yes, of course," Picard exclaimed. "It's quite impressive. We have plants from several hundred worlds."

The conversation shifted to plant species, then to flowers. And then everyone was finished eating, so Wyatt left with his parents for the arboretum at Deanna's request, with reassurance that she would come find him after she spoke with her captain. 

They resettled around the end of the table, after recycling all the dishes. Deanna folded her hands in her lap and faced the captain seriously. "Thank you for being so welcoming to the Millers, and especially to my mother. I knew she would irritate you. She has that effect on many people."

Picard waved a hand as if it annoyed him -- Will thought it was embarrassment that was annoying to him. "You're part of the family, here. Why wouldn't I? Are you any closer to a decision?"

It was clear she'd spoken to him about this more than she'd spoken to Will. He hated that she could tell he was jealous of that. But she didn't even look at him, only smiled a little at Picard. "He told me about those dreams -- he's a good artist, in addition to being a doctor. He drew her face hundreds of times, and she looks nothing like me. He's been obsessed with her for as long as he remembers. I'm not sure what to feel about that."

"I only know what I would do -- I wouldn't presume to even make a suggestion," he said. "I may be hoping that you stay, but I also know that whatever you do, it will be a well-considered and rational decision that you make."

She actually grinned, with amusement in her eyes for the first time in days. But it faded quickly. "Because that's what you do, when you're not in love with him. Be rational," she said softly. "But he is a good man. I think we might be quite compatible in most respects."

Picard nodded thoughtfully. "He seems intelligent enough. Respectful, thoughtful, and he does seem to like you."

Will stood up abruptly, unable to sit through it another second. He froze -- both of them looked up at him, startled. It was as though they had forgotten he was there at all. That added another layer of frustration to the situation.

"Excuse me," he said, going into motion instead of blurting out what he was thinking.

He was on the bridge before he could calm down. Data gave him a sidelong glance as he returned to the conn.

"Status, Mr. Data?"

"Nothing of note to report -- we have not heard from Haven. Is everything all right, Commander?"

"Yes," Will said as he replaced Data and the android returned to ops, displacing the ensign there.

It was as 'all right' as it could be, anyway.


	6. Chapter 6

Will tossed aside the book he'd borrowed from the captain, unable to focus well enough to read it. He raised a foot to work off the boot, did the same with the other foot, tossing the boots aside. He was almost reclining with his feet up on the couch when the computer announced a visitor.

He sat up straight as the door opened and Deanna came in, still wearing her gray pantsuit. She looked exhausted. "Hello," she said, looking down at him as she stood there in the middle of his living room.

"Everything all right?" He wasn't sure how to respond to the tension in the room. She seemed to be expecting something.

"I wanted to apologize to you for being short with you," she said.

"It's been a difficult day. I know you're feeling a lot of pressure and your mother's probably driving you crazy. I should the least of your worries, but thank you for that," he said, relieved that it wasn't going to be an argument.

She shrugged a little, looked away and back nervously. "I understand it's difficult for you to watch this happen. But I hoped you would remember everything I told you before, about the obligations to tradition that might cause me difficulties."

"I don't remember every single detail. But I think I would have remembered if you'd told me you were already engaged to someone."

Deanna sighed and crossed her arms, but didn't fly off the handle at it. "I didn't think it would be an issue. I had expected to hear from them when I reached the age of majority, but there was no contact at all. I believed they had decided not to follow through. That was always a choice Wyatt could have made, he isn't Betazoid after all. He apparently waited until he completed his doctorate and had everything in place to contact me -- that took him a while since he started in one major and switched to pre-med, adding a couple of years to his college degree. And he specialized, which extended his residency. He apologized for not making contact sooner. He honestly thought this dream woman was me, and so he was absolutely certain that once we were together it would be perfect -- he wanted to complete his education and be able to simply step into married life with the woman of his dreams."

"But somehow you have no choice at all. What would have happened if you had married someone else in the interim?"

She hung her head. "It would be a choice between my citizenship on Betazed and my heritage, and whoever I married."

"Okay. So when your mother was screaming about that, when we weren't doing something the way she wanted, that was her being dramatic. But some of the time she was serious?" Lwaxana had threatened to toss Deanna out of the family several times in his hearing.

"There are some things in our tradition that really are beyond her control to change," Deanna said, the pained look in her eyes returning. "She does exaggerate. But sometimes she also feels the pressure of it all. There are no official governing bodies to enforce these traditions, but the social consequences for her and for me remain. And as you know it's impossible to just lie to a Betazoid. It would be known."

Will chewed on his lower lip for a moment. "So the fact that he has believed all this time that he was dreaming about you and it was meant to be brought him to Haven, to rendezvous with you. Has he changed his mind now that he knows you aren't the 'soulmate' he's dreaming about?"

Deanna shook her head, her gaze dropping once more. "He isn't sure how to decide whether she is real, or just a fantasy as his mother suggested. But he likes me, and he's considering. I did suggest that we might return to our lives and continue to correspond, to see if it will work out that we both decide marriage is a good thing for us to do."

He almost asked if there might be another reason to just call it off -- why she couldn't simply tell Wyatt there was already someone else in her life. Wyatt could then decide the marriage wouldn't happen, on her behalf. But the answer was glaringly obvious, and he had to finally, finally accept what he'd thought about each time she sensed his feelings and turned away. She was considering a marriage to someone she did not love. Something had changed, since the day he'd come aboard and she had made contact mind to mind. There had not been another similar contact, and she had done nothing but treat him as a friend. So regardless of the details, she clearly had changed her mind about wanting to rekindle an old flame.

Still. That, too, could change.

"Your mother came to the bridge when she was done in the salon," he said, turning to less emotionally risky topics. "Her hair was impressive -- Mr. Mott is a credit to his profession. And yet, it still was not enough to impress upon the captain that he should take her up on her offer of an intimate dinner with him."

A sad smile at that. "Mother knows she won't succeed with him. I'm afraid her attention to him has more to do with me. She's experimenting to see what will result in my return to Betazed -- she's never approved of Starfleet for me."

"Heavy-handed flirting with your commanding officer to convince you to leave? Or does she think he'll fire you rather than tolerate her?"

Deanna gave an odd one-shouldered shrug, rather than comment. After a moment she said, "I should go apologize to him."

"You know he doesn't think you're responsible for her behavior. He gets it."

But she had turned and headed out, and he sat staring at the closed door after she'd gone.

The following morning when he reported to the bridge, he walked into the middle of a conversation between the captain and someone on Haven speaking in near-hysterical tones about a Talerian vessel approaching the planet.

"The vessel is traveling at sub-light speeds, Electorine," the captain was saying calmly. "You may rest assured that we will be able to prevent them from beaming down to Haven. It will take them -- Mr. Data?"

"Fourteen hours, nine minutes, twenty two seconds -- "

"Thank you, Mr. Data. In fourteen hours we will be able to make contact and warn them away, and further intervene as necessary, per the treaty with the Federation. Mr. LaForge, plot a course -- I want to rendezvous with that vessel within the hour."

"Yes, sir. We can be there in ten minutes at warp two, sir."

"Thank you, Captain Picard," the relieved woman on the main viewer exclaimed. "Please update us when you have resolved the problem, as I'm confident you will."

"Of course." Picard bowed slightly. "I will speak to you within a few hours with more information. _Enterprise_ out." He turned and strode toward his chair. "Engage, Mr. LaForge."

"Good morning, sir. If it's a Talerian vessel, should we be at red alert?"

"Let's just see what this is about, Number One."

Deanna arrived as they spoke, and sat down on Picard's left. "Where are we going?"

"No need for alarm, we're investigating a report of a Talerian vessel approaching the planet. They're traveling at impulse," Picard explained.

"The Millers and my mother accepted your offer of accommodations, so they might ask about this when they notice the ship is under way. Will we go back to Haven?"

"Of course."

They dropped out of warp a few minutes later and Tasha hailed the other vessel, as ordered. The Talerian were fairly famous and Will had heard they were extinct -- the plague that had ravaged their civilization after one faction used a biological weapon on the other and ended up wiping out almost everyone had resulted in some fleeing in whatever space-capable vessel they had, only to find that they had taken the virus with them. Derelict vessels full of sick or dead people had caused other plagues, as the virulent synthetic virus had been engineered to be that deadly. There were those who had taken to destroying Talerian vessels on sight without so much as communicating with any remaining occupants, to avoid infecting their own people.

Picard, of course, was not one of them. When the viewer flicked to a view of the interior of the vessel, presumably their bridge, three people were standing there -- two men and a woman. Deanna gasped audibly -- it caused Picard to hesitate on the verge of rising to greet them. She shook her head, and Picard continued, introducing himself and addressing the issue.

"I am Wrenn. We have been on a course for this system because we are looking for Haven," the man in the front said. "Do you come from Haven?"

"We are here on their behalf, yes," Picard said. "Also because we believed that there were no Tarelians left -- we are curious as to how you came to be here."

Wrenn, a slight, balding middle-aged man, glanced at the woman. "We have, of course, been searching for a place to either find help or to finally end our journey and die. You appear to understand our history somewhat? My daughter has also been insisting that she knows she will find someone here that is very important to her."

"Someone? I don't understand." Picard wandered up to stand between ops and the helm. "I can consult with our chief medical officer on your behalf, to see if there is a cure for your virus. I must make that conditional upon your cooperation -- if you would power down and come to a full stop, we will do whatever we can, provide supplies, medicine, and help you find a new destination."

"Thank you, Captain. I will give the order. Yes, Ariana?" Wrenn turned to the woman, who had come forward and taken his arm. 

"He's here," she said. "I know he is."

A movement to the left drew Will's attention -- he turned as Deanna started up the ramp to the back of the bridge. She left in the lift.

"Ariana," the man chided gently. "Not now."

"Captain," the woman said, stepping past Wrenn. "Do you have anyone aboard -- "

"Arianna, this is not the time," Wrenn said sternly. "I'm sorry, Captain, she believes she will find the love of her life on Haven."

The woman meanwhile produced a folded sheet of paper, and unfolded it. "This man."

"Wyatt," Will said quietly.

Picard turned and exchanged a look with him. "I suppose this will complicate matters."

"Or simplify them."

The captain turned back to the people on the viewer. "We do have someone aboard who resembles your picture. However, I'm sure you understand that we can't arrange a meeting just yet."

"Of course," Wrenn said. He was startled, and watched Ariana start to cry with some alarm. "Are you certain?"

The lift opened and Deanna returned with Wyatt in tow, and upon seeing the viewer he pushed past her and ran down to the middle of the bridge, almost bumping into the captain. "It's you!"

Deanna returned to her seat and settled with her hands in her lap, smiling as the two met for the first time with everyone on both bridges looking on in shock. 


	7. Chapter 7

Will strolled into Ten Forward and looked around. It was still early in the evening, and there were still plenty of tables open. When he saw Deanna seated in the far corner facing away from the door, he went to greet her. He hadn't seen her in two days.

She looked up from a padd as he reached the table. "Hello, Will. Is it already the end of shift?"

"Yep. What are you so intently studying?"

She sighed and turned back to the glyphs across the screen of the padd. "Jaradan. I'm preparing myself to prepare the captain for our encounter with them next week. It's a difficult language."

"May I?" He indicated the other chair across from her, and sat down after she nodded. "I haven't seen you much since Haven."

She shook her head and kept her eyes trained on the padd. "It's been busy. I also took a little time off, after Mother and the Millers left. I'm happy for Wyatt, doubly so -- what a relief to find out that a cure for that virus had been developed, and that we could replicate it. The only one who wasn't really that happy was Mother, when I told her she couldn't stay aboard and find a new husband."

"At least she gave up on flirting with the captain. Do you want me to leave you to study?"

Deanna looked up at him finally. "Was there something you wanted to discuss?"

"Well... there's that. I'd like to discuss that."

She blinked, her expression puzzled. "That?"

"You've been distant since the Millers left." Since she had almost married a man she did not love, out of duty to tradition.

"Will," she began, but stopped, evidently to consider her words more carefully. "Do you want to be my friend?"

"Of course. But I know you can tell that I would be open to more than that."

Her brows drew in, and the tiny frown did not instill any hope at all. "I'm suspecting that you understand that I am not."

"Was it something I said?"

"Not at all," she said at once, without hesitation. "I can see that we are both different than we were before. I enjoy working with you, as I do with the rest of the senior staff. I'm content to let things be as they have been, and continue to build those friendships."

"But do you think -- " He stopped himself, second-guessing his ability to tolerate a more definitive 'no.'

Deanna smiled the sad, sad smile of acceptance. "I want to be friends, Will. I enjoy that. There's something different about this ship, don't you think? It feels different to me than my last assignment."

"Yes," he agreed, because it was true. "But I suspected it would be -- DeSoto told me once that the captain sets the tone. I knew that was true, but here -- he isn't what I would call paternal or even remotely affectionate. But Picard does have a way of expecting the best and getting it out of you, doesn't he? Without being punitive or harsh."

A warm smile at the mention of the captain. He knew she was fond of him. Everyone on senior staff save Data had some feelings -- immense respect, fondness, admiration -- for Picard. "He's surprised me in how he manages people. If you listen to him, he'd have you think he pays no attention and minds his business. But he does see more than you'd expect, doesn't he? I think I appreciate the most how he handled my mother. It would have been easy for him to lose his temper and be insulting or disrespectful."

"Diplomacy is one of the things he's known for," Will said. He tapped the top edge of her padd. "He wouldn't have gotten this assignment otherwise."

Deanna nodded. "I anticipate we'll have some challenging diplomatic missions -- I know we'll be confronting the Cardassians at some point. I've heard there have been... difficulties."

"I don't think anyone currently commanding a starship can say they are fond of the Cardassians. I know our captain has fought battles with them, in the less recent past." He knew this was a strategic change of subject, and sighed. "You really don't want to talk to me about this."

She went silent, and turned away. When she brought her eyes back from looking through the nearest viewport, she gazed at him as if trying to figure something out. Perhaps whether or not to voice something.

"Friends do share things with each other, you know," he said with a light, jovial tone that he had learned to use when confronting someone.

"But I don't think friends share every detail of their lives with each other. And I think you need to feel more friendly, for me to share more than I have," she said softly.

He nodded. "Well. Have fun teaching Jaradan to the captain. I'm going to get a drink from the bar."

Guinan got him the beer he asked for, and Geordi and Data came in and started to talk to him about their next intended holodeck adventure, then talk him into coming with them. As they left he glanced back -- Deanna still sat alone, engrossed in her padd.

Yes, she'd changed. Yes, there was a chance she wouldn't change her mind about this. But he knew they had been close enough to share thoughts before. They'd been bonded, she had said as much and he'd been told by others that it didn't happen often with non-Betazoids, what they had had was unique -- why would he give up so easily something that special?

He'd changed too -- he could be more patient. She'd come around eventually.

There was always tomorrow....

 

* * *

 

Four tomorrows later, he was monitoring the bridge as they were on their way to Starbase 452, several days prior to their rendezvous with the Jaradans. He'd seen Deanna occasionally but she'd been in the ready room up to two hours per day, coaching the captain in the nuances of the language he was practicing -- a lot of practice for a straightforward, short greeting, Will thought, but it was that serious that the captain wanted it to be effortless in the execution. The rest of the day the counselor was with clients, or in her karate class -- following her usual schedule and apparently doing well.

The first round of performance reviews was drawing closer and closer, so he started interviewing officers in his tiny office, tucked away on deck two. The fifth one to come was Randle MacAvoy -- he did a double take at the spelling of the first name. Sometimes parents could be original, sometimes they tried and succeeded only in causing the poor kid some trauma as people endlessly mangled his name.

"Come in," he said as the annunciator sounded while he was reading the lieutenant's service record. He looked up and did another double take. "Lieutenant MacAvoy?"

"Yes, sir," the beautiful woman replied with an embarrassed smile. "I know, you were expecting someone more masculine. But my parents had a unique sense of humor. You can call me Randi. I mean, sir, most people call me Randi," she blurted, now truly embarrassed.

"Have a seat, Randi," he said with a smile. It reassured her; she sat down. "This will probably be fairly routine, since we've only been on this ten year mission for a few months. Also your supervisor gives you high marks. So tell me about your experience aboard the _Enterprise_ so far," he said, giving her a wink.

So she summarised her thoughts on her time aboard, and shrugged a little sheepishly at the shortness of the description. "My department has several ongoing projects, but we've not been called upon for away missions. So I guess it's not much to review."

"I think that will tend to be the case with most -- just following procedure. Next year we'll see a much bigger picture of how good an officer you are. Is there anything you feel would help you improve? Anything I can do to help?"

She blinked -- her smile turned brilliant, then she dropped her gaze and shrugged again. "Sorry. I guess...."

He sighed. "Lieutenant," he said gently.

"For a minute I -- sorry."

"Did you take the same class I did, at the Academy? About relationships between officers on starships?"

"It's required, so yes. And I guess it's obvious I need a refresher course?"

Will smiled sympathetically. "Look. I know it's awkward when there's an attraction to another officer, which is why we're going to talk about this instead of brushing it off -- you're not in any trouble. Okay? Let's back up a bit -- have I done anything that makes you uncomfortable?"

"Well, no. I think I made me uncomfortable. I guess I didn't -- I mean, you surprised me," she stammered.

"I can see that. I think we surprised each other."

"If we're done with the review, sir?" she said breathlessly.

"We are -- but are we done with the conversation?" Will studied her face -- she was a blonde, fair skinned and blushing profusely by this point, avoiding his eyes. "I'm not entirely comfortable dismissing you until you can look me in the eye."

She did, and was caught there for a moment.

"Good, take a deep breath."

Randi calmed visibly, as she did so.

"So I want you to know that if you feel later on, that if you look back on this encounter and want to talk to someone about it, you should go make an appointment with one of the counselors, or go to the captain."

"Oh," she exclaimed. "That isn't -- necessary, I think. I don't really -- I mean, yes, sir."

"I'm serious about that. I want you to feel comfortable here, not let this be an impediment to your work. So if I see you in Ten Forward sometime, you're welcome to join me if you want. If you need help in the professional realm, my door's always open. For now, I'm in agreement with the recommendations provided by your supervisor. You're dismissed to return to your station, Lieutenant."

"Thank you, sir." She came out of the chair and saluted unnecessarily, and left him to sigh and try to shake it off, and wait for the next lieutenant.

He left his office after the last two meetings, which were short, to the point and without incident, and returned to the bridge for the remaining hour of alpha shift. Which passed uneventfully. He spent another hour in Ten Forward as he did a few times a week, ate something for dinner while there and chatting now and then with people in passing. He saw Randi come in with a couple others, probably from her own department. She smiled when their eyes met across the room and waved, then turned back as she and her friends sat around one of the tables.

That was enough to ease his conscience, and he asked Guinan for another synthale. When Argyle came by he invited the engineer to have a seat, and they exchanged anecdotes about away teams for a while.

 

* * *

 

The intense meeting with the Jaradans came and went -- the captain successfully greeted the enigmatic aliens, and the ship left orbit intact, no dire situation resulting. As anticlimactic as it could be, the remainder of the day passed as they began another journey, this time to examine stellar phenomenon in an uncharted system. 

Will strolled into Ten Forward on a whim and found it moderately busy. He took a table near the door and within ten minutes a shadow fell across the padd he was holding. He glanced up and found Randi MacAvoy smiling down at him.

"A moment of your time, sir?" She wasn't nervous or blushing.

"Okay, sure. Good evening, Lieutenant."

She sat across from him and her smile didn't waver. "So I just wanted you to know, I spoke with one of the counselors and came to some conclusions. First -- neither one of us did anything wrong. Second -- the thing that set me off really wasn't anything about you, other than it's been a long time since I really felt -- well. I don't have a spark for just anyone. The last time I felt like that, two years later I was engaged to marry him. And then he had to -- well, it was bad, and now I don't see or talk to him, and I transferred from a posting that I really enjoyed to get that distance. I came aboard focused on career. So it was a shock to walk in and -- you know, and it brought up a lot of anxiety that had not a lot to do with you, other than I embarrassed myself in front of the first officer, and it helped that you stuck to business, so I wanted to thank you for that."

"You're welcome," he replied with a smile. "I'm glad you worked it out."

She nodded, and glanced up nervously -- a couple of people went by without looking at them, so she relaxed again. "I'll let you get back to your -- " she waved at the padd. 

"It's a novel, about the _Enterprise_ \-- a fictionalized account of the crew of the first spacefaring version of the ship. Ever read any of Mark Douglas' work?"

"You mean the one who wrote about the early years of Starfleet? They were passed around in the dorms at the Academy. I liked them better than the ones that attempted to tell the story of the romances on some of the ships, anyway." She wasn't getting up, so he kept talking.

"This one hints at a relationship between the engineer, Tucker, and the first officer, who wasn't even a member of Starfleet, at least at first. T'Pol was a Vulcan."

"There aren't too many Vulcans who are interested in humans in that way, as I understand." Randi glanced up again, but the four people edging by again didn't so much as look at them. "Does it go into any of the missions in any depth? I've actually had occasion to review some of the actual logs, here and there."

"It does -- I know it's supposed to be fiction, but I find myself fact checking it because some of the most unbelievable things turn out to be true. Like the male crew member who became pregnant after an encounter with an alien species."

"Oh, I think I read that," Randi exclaimed, wrinkling her nose. "It's been a long time but I remember reading that story."

"Hey," a young male ensign said, coming up to them. "We got the pool table set up, Randi, are you coming?"

"Sure." Randi glanced at Will. "Want to join us, Commander?"

Will smiled and gave it a few seconds of thought -- he didn't want to give her ideas, as attractive as she was, but he also knew spending time with crew would help him in the long run. Building good working relationships included a little down time invested here and there. 

"I can play some pool, sure," he said, rising and picking up his padd.

 

* * *

 

 

A few days later he was on his way to his quarters in the evening, after a game of velocity on the holodeck. He'd intended to play a round with the captain, as they often did, but Picard had been occupied. After changing out of his sweaty uniform into some civilian clothes that he could relax in, Will left his quarters for the lift intending to go to Ten Forward. He was surprised to see the captain down the corridor from the lift, heading into his own quarters. He was dressed in a more formal manner than most people would do after hours. Picard glanced at him as Will halted to greet him.

"Sir. Spending a little time in the holodeck?"

"Yes, just a visit to Paris. Used to take a weekend there once in a while, while I was still at the Academy. I've been badgered by the doctor and the counselor enough about taking the time to relax." And he did appear relaxed, indeed. There was an ease about him that Will hadn't seen since he'd come aboard.

"See you in the morning, sir," Will said with a nod, moving on down the corridor toward the lift. 

"Will?" Picard exclaimed. 

Will turned back at the summons, surprised by the urgency of the call. "Sir?"

"I'd like to discuss something with you, if you have a moment?" He gestured and headed into his quarters. "Want anything to drink?"

"No, thanks. What's on your mind?" Will crossed his arms and stood with most of his weight on one leg. His other leg was a little sore from pulling something while twisting around to shoot a target.

"I felt I should let you know that I've decided... earlier you asked if I was all right. I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. I know that I took a firm stance in the beginning, that you were to be a liaison with the civilian contingent. Especially the children. I've decided to evolve."

That wasn't what Will expected. Aside from being a complete non sequitr, coming out of nowhere, it was an about-face from Picard's earlier insistence that he wanted nothing to do with the civilians aboard. Will did an understated double-take. "Evolve?"

"It's obvious to me that I took a hard and absolute stance about certain things out of defensiveness. That I've had an attitude about relationships with others that only leads to isolation and eventually to loneliness. The counselor has helped me see that I'm only setting myself up for failure. So as a first step toward developing a level of comfort with being less rigid I'm meeting with Wesley tomorrow -- I thought you should know, so when he comes to the bridge you'll know he has an appointment with me."

Will stared, for a few stunned seconds, then grinned. "Well. I'm glad to hear counseling is working out so well for you."

"It's helped me see that I might not have to consider certain kinds of relationships as off limits, as well. I certainly hadn't expected to, but I've actually come to see you as a good friend. You and I have different perspectives on some things, but I've come to realize that we also agree on the more important aspects -- I appreciate your honesty and forthrightness, for example, even if at times it frustrates me that you're right."

"Well... if we're going to be that open about things...." Will chuckled a little. This was good news, indeed. The captain would be all the happier for it -- perhaps they might yet be close friends. "I didn't expect to like you that much, either. Because it did sound like you were being a bit too extreme, on some things."

"Yes, well, I'm seeing the error of my ways. And it will be having some effect on the bridge, I think, but not directly. I hope that it will help me be more in touch with the crew, at least."

Will was expecting that to be the end of it. He half-turned toward the door, but hesitated to hear the dismissal. Picard nodded, smiled, and took a step away -- but paused. 

"Oh, there is one other thing -- Dr. Michetti will be coming to the ready room next week to see me."

That brought him back to face Picard again. "Dr. Michetti? Why? I thought you were working with Deanna."

"It would be a conflict, for her to attempt to continue working with me."

That took a full minute to sink in -- for Will to put together his mode of dress -- what he would wear on an evening out with someone -- and his familiarity with Deanna in those moments on the bridge or in the briefing room when the two would chat a little. Will had attributed this to the fact that she was working with him as a counselor. Obviously, Will had been incorrect. His jaw clenched, then he turned on a heel and departed with a stiff stride.

It went through him like ice, as he rushed down the corridor. It went through him again as he fled into his quarters.

Deanna hadn't just decided not to rekindle their relationship. She'd decided to start one with the captain.

Will paced in circles, running his fingers through his hair, until he couldn't stand it any longer. He left and went down the corridor, this time to Deanna's door, and requested access. She would sense him, she would already know he was upset, he thought she would understand why he was upset as well.

The door opened after a moment and she was there -- he almost forgot to be angry, at the sight of her. She wore a beautiful shining pink dress, her hair tumbling down around her shoulders, and while her expression was one of concern and perhaps a little fear, she was so obviously dressed for someone she loved.

"You should have told me," he said, surprised by how little anger he had left. Now it was just the pain of seeing her this way and knowing it was for someone else, and unlike Wyatt, it was obvious this wasn't just some decision made without passion.

Tears filled her eyes. "I couldn't," she whispered.

"Can we talk?"

She looked down, appeared to consider it, and met his eyes again. "What would that accomplish?"

Will wanted to tear his hair out, or cry, or shout at her. The impulse gathered in his throat and threated to choke him. Finally, he swallowed it, forced a few deep breaths, and made himself look at her without saying a word.

"Good night, Will. I'll see you tomorrow." Deanna turned to go inside, and the door closed behind her. Despite his proximity it didn't open again.

Will slowly dragged his heartbreak back to his quarters, and lay on the bed without changing out of his clothes. He couldn't sleep, but he couldn't think either -- staring up at the stars and enduring.

He rose early, worked out harder than usual, ignored the soreness, went back to quarters and put on a uniform. He had no appetite so skipped breakfast. Lieutenant Foley, the gamma watch officer, looked askance at him when he wasn't as friendly as usual, but said nothing, delivered a short briefing on the uneventful early morning watch and departed. Ten minutes after the shift change, the captain arrived.

"Good morning, sir," Will said, trying to sound as normal as possible -- the result was passable, if cool. "Sleep well?"

"As well as ever," Picard replied with a sigh. "I'll be in my ready room, Number One."

"Yes, sir," Will replied crisply. He watched the captain head in to disappear from the bridge for a while. 

He thought about going to sickbay to get something for the muscle soreness, but decided the slight discomfort would help him get through the morning. He needed something to ground him -- he was the first officer of the flagship of the fleet, he had no time to indulge in heartache.

He made it through lunch -- went through the performance reviews with Deanna, in a terse, to-the-point manner. She mirrored his distress in her eyes but said nothing at all. Let him suffer through their forty-two minutes in Ten Forward while he ignored his drink and gutted it out. Thankfully, she didn't repeat the encouragement to see Dr. Michetti. She said nothing at all about anything personal.

Which, he decided, actually helped him get through it.

He went to his office and hid for a while, not even able to focus on work. By the time he went to the holodeck to play velocity with Picard, he felt less numb, perhaps calmer, and thought he would be able to make it through all of this.

It was not as though she had ever led him on, or that Picard had ever done anything to deserve his anger.

It was also not his first heartbreak. He knew he would survive.

It just wasn't going to be easy....


	8. Chapter 8

Will was in the holodeck firing at targets already by the time the captain arrived. He kept firing while Picard got a weapon and paused to watch him come to the center of the room. He had intended to say nothing about it, but the question left his mouth before he recognized it was happening.

"You're sure it's a good idea?"

Picard stopped in front of him and sized him up. "Not at all."

Will smirked at that. "It isn't consistent. You've never done this before."

They'd had a talk, about such things. Picard had been dismissive, not really engaging in conversation about the topic of relationships with other officers. Now he seemed to have reversed course. "I've followed my instincts on a number of occasions. It's part of why there's a maneuver named after me."

Will's eyebrow jumped. "You're equating a relationship with a mission?"

"Not really, no. I followed my instincts away from Starfleet, for a while. Something is telling me that it's time for a change, I can feel it -- surely you have a gut instinct that propels you into solutions where rational thinking fails you."

"The change being a relationship with a senior officer who was supposed to be your counselor? Isn't that going to make counseling difficult?"

Picard smiled at that. "If we had been engaged in actual therapy, it might. Five sessions of trying to coach me through tactics to defeat insomnia hardly constitute therapy. I wasn't talking to her about everything, because everything involved telling her part of the problem was thinking about her. And now I'll see a different counselor -- I'd have to do that anyway. She fired me, because she knew I was resisting her."

Will thought it was obvious that neither Picard nor Deanna were thinking rationally about this. "She's not thinking clearly."

Picard crossed his arms. "You think so?"

"Of course not. She's easily swayed by emotions. She's caught up and not thinking about her position here, or about her career, or yours." It bothered Will that Picard had reversed his opinion so easily.

Picard's smile bothered him. "I'm guessing that you are assuming that none of that has come up in conversation, and that we're doomed to failure from the start. Perhaps we should play velocity while you contemplate the reality that you have no way to predict any of that."

"All right," Will said with a one-shouldered shrug. Clearly he wasn't going to budge.

They shot targets for nearly twenty minutes before either of them spoke. It was often the case that they fell into a rhythm firing one after the other and taking out grouped disks before they could team up and swoop in to threaten them. The targets were programmed to come at them in teams after level five.

"Are you coming to Worf's birthday party?" Will asked, groping for something else to say, to restart conversation and get back to being on good terms.

"What?"

"Tasha is throwing a birthday party."

"Do Klingons celebrate birthdays?" He seemed surprised.

"Don't know. But Tasha wanted to, and Data's helping her."

"I suppose it depends on when - and whether the entire crew is invited. I've never been one for large parties."

"Deanna's helping Tasha as well, I think she suggested it to her." Will considered mentioning that Deanna had brought it up the other day to ask him to invite those in other departments who knew Worf.

"I'll check with her about the schedule, then." Picard shot three targets in succession. He missed the fourth, but Will caught it and spun as another four discs materialized and swooped down from the opposite corner.

Once again, they fell silent, and Will's mind turned back to the situation. He started to wonder where he'd missed cues -- he'd noticed some interesting looks pass between the doctor and the captain at times, and knew there had to be something there. Picard had mentioned that Crusher's husband had been his best friend.

Unfortunately, as usual, his thoughts led to speaking aloud. "I thought you were making a play for Crusher."

Picard reacted before he could catch himself, spinning on a heel, almost knocking Will off the platform bumping into him and hopping backward off it himself, which paused the program and froze the next set of targets in place. He started to pace around the platform. "What would lead you to believe that?" he asked at last.

Will watched him, arms out, wary. That was a dumb move. "It was a guess."

"Do you know how much attention I pay to your relationships?"

Will held up his hands in surrender. "I was just saying," he began slowly. "I was shocked. That's why I reacted as I did. I'm sorry."

Picard nodded. It seemed to be all right -- he stepped back up to rejoin him on the platform. "Are we ready for level six?"

They went on, until a call from the bridge interrupted to announce a priority call from Admiral Jensen. Both of them left the holodeck. "I wonder what it is?" Will asked as they entered the lift.

"Jensen is diplomatic corps. Odds are we're about to be sent to negotiate something." They sped out of the lift. The captain glanced at Yar. "In my ready room, Lieutenant."

Yar followed Will who followed the captain into the ready room, and they stood at attention while Picard rounded the desk and tapped the winking light. The computer chirped. "Admiral Jensen, this is Captain Picard."

"Jean-Luc. There's a situation -- you are the closest available vessel. The Norass have broken their treaty with the Gemenn. There's no real intel on the matter -- we only know that there was a skirmish, and the Norass are requesting an independent arbiter."

He glanced at Will, who nodded. "We're a day away at high warp," Will said.

"Change course at once, Commander."

"Yes, sir." Will spun about and marched out of the ready room, leaving Yar to discuss the matter with the captain further. They were on duty again. All else would be set aside until the situation was handled.

 The senior staff meeting came several hours into the journey to the provided coordinates. It was all fairly routine, with Deanna providing most of the information, and Will was tracking the conversation without concern right up to the mention of Marcus. It reminded him of years ago, when she had been a student and they had quarreled over things that he wouldn't have done more than roll his eyes about now. Marcus had clearly been interested in her, and that she would continue to be friendly to Marcus had irritated the younger Will Riker to no end. He felt a little irritation just thinking about it.

Then the captain was speaking. And he gave Will another reason to be upset. "Without question, security will be a necessity -- a strong weaponized team, a solid presence to impress upon both species that we are not weak. At least four teams of five."

"We'll be ready, sir," Tasha exclaimed in that eager, forthright way she had.

"I will be taking Counselor Troi with me, as well as -- "

"No, sir, you will not," Will exclaimed, raising his head. "It's too dangerous."

"This is not a matter for debate, Commander." Picard glared at him, actually irritated by the comment. He had been looking tired; he seemed a bit more volatile than usual.

"The aggressiveness of both species argues against your participation, sir," Tasha said. "The commander is right."

"There are Starfleet officers and a diplomatic party of four at risk to consider," Picard said sternly. "And a non-aggression pact to preserve. Preventing a war between them means the neighboring Federation worlds will be safe. And if the Norass cannot find a resolution with our help, it may result in aggression toward the Federation. This is a sensitive situation. We have six hours until we arrive."

Will stared at Deanna wishing she would speak up. She merely looked at Picard as if to tell him his opinion didn't matter so much.

But then Picard looked at her, and Deanna said, "My concern is that you're tired -- with a species like the Gemenn we should send someone who is awake and aware of every nuance of body language, their own as well as the delegate's, because if you slip up or miss anything or not react appropriately it could cause a war."

It had a bigger impact than what Will had said. Crusher sat up a little straighter, and Tasha's head spun to look at him, waiting for the captain to react to that. Picard sighed, and glanced at the cup of coffee in front of him. The mostly-empty cup. He still looked like he was about to fall asleep. "I will get four hours of sleep. The doctor will re-evaluate me after. Dismissed."

At least he would listen to someone. Will shot a look at Deanna, wishing she would stick around and talk to him, but she rose with the rest of them and left. So Will stood up and followed Yar from the observation lounge, and watched the captain head up to the lift and leave the bridge, the counselor going with him.

"He might change his mind after he's had some sleep," Yar said softly, hesitating, poised to head up to her station. "He looks exhausted."

Will grimaced and went to sit down, gesturing up the bridge with his right hand. Yar obeyed, headed for tactical, and didn't speak again unless it had to do with the mission.

He had a contact from sickbay letting him know the captain had been cleared, a few hours later. Deanna came back to the bridge briefly and left again with Yar. After half an hour he attempted to contact the captain to speak to him.

By the time Picard returned to the bridge and waved him into the ready room for a chat, Will was fuming. He kept his frustration under tight wraps -- Picard was clearly not as tired as he was before, but Will suspected he wouldn't be particularly tolerant of anything unrelated to duty at the moment.

"I suspect you're about to tell me what you told me in the staff meeting," Picard said as he went to his sofa instead of going to his desk. He sat, and Will did the same at the other end of the sofa close to the door, sitting on the edge of the cushion uneasily.

"I was thinking that after a little rest, you might reconsider, yes. I also think that it might be better to invite them here, rather than beaming down."

Picard smiled, but appeared to be studying some point in the air between them as he thought about it. "Both sides want an impartial arbiter. They likely view the _Borneo_ as something else -- the social structure of both species is such that they prefer to obtain orders from the top. The ship was caught up in their skirmish, and absent any direct communication from Command it likely became classified as a potential hostile. Command informed them of our role directly, and were very specific about it, unlike the _Borneo'_ s mission which was less narrowly defined. The Norass in particular like very well definited goals stated up front before they deal with you. They want to know exactly what you plan and what you expect of them -- saying that we want to establish better diplomatic contacts is too vague. And, both species need the reassurance of having us come to them, on neutral ground -- the habitable moon we're to meet them on is in a system neither species claims nor inhabits. Having them come aboard would make both sides incredibly anxious and much more likely to end the negotiation prematurely."

Will had to begrudgingly decide that he hadn't studied these cultures well enough. "Well, I see your point -- but it still doesn't sit well. You should stay aboard, sir."

"Perhaps you should read the contents of some of the reports of previous envoys, including Trevian's meetings with the Norass, before you decide we should take the risk of my not participating. Both have a highly structured hierarchy. They would respect the highest ranking officer the most -- that's why Admiral Jensen went down, when I was last here." Picard rose, yanking his uniform straight. "I'll be back, Number One, make no mistake. It may be a tense situation but I'm not going into it blind."

Will had to watch the captain leave the bridge, and sat down. To pass the time he started to review the mentioned reports on a padd. They were in a standard orbit, and though there were vessels of all kinds around them there was no indication of hostility. It was quiet, and would hopefully remain that way.

He had just finished the third of the dozen or so reports when the call came in. "Yar to _Enterprise_! Emergency beamout of the away team! To sickbay!"

"Transporter room, beam up the away team," Will exclaimed. "Givens -- if there's any sign of weapons of those other ships going hot, raise the shields and set us to red alert immediately."

"Aye, sir," the ensign at tactical exclaimed.

Will paced back and forth for a few minutes, but nothing happened. None of the other vessels moved a meter out of their orbits. "Mr. Data, I'm going to sickbay -- you have the bridge."

Everything was normal as normal could be, right up to the moment the sickbay door opened. Will came into a scene that took some few moments for him to sort out. There was blood everywhere, puddling on the floor -- Tasha and her security teams were gathered against the right side wall of the room, staring in horror, as the medical staff were surrounding the captain and the counselor. Someone was wailing in great pain. Will realized, with an intense wave of shock, that it was the captain.

"Get the laser scalpel, the largest one," Crusher cried out as she pressed a hypo against the captain's neck. The wailing stopped, and four of the staff stepped in to hold up the two patients. For some reason Picard had his arms around Deanna tightly from behind. The reason became obvious as they pulled the two apart -- a blossom of red poured from the front of the captain's uniform, as they caught him up and placed him on a nearby biobed.

That left Deanna, who they were keeping on her feet despite her obvious lack of consciousness -- now that there were fewer people around her, Will could see a long straight object had pierced her through the chest. He found himself gasping for air, and realized then that he had been holding his breath. Dr. Selar started to cut at the weapon -- within seconds the longer section protruding from Deanna's ribs fell away. Then she was carried rapidly away from main sickbay, probably to the surgical bay in the next room.

Crusher, meanwhile, checked over the captain and then turned to look at Will. "The captain will be fine, Commander," she said. She was tense -- but that would happen when there were patients

Will inhaled again deeply and turned to the security officers. "Yar, report."

"We were heading into the main area -- the leaders of both sides and all their attendants were with us. It all seemed to be going well. When I saw the movement out of the corner of my eye -- " Yar faltered, looked down at the floor, and radiated dismay. One of her subordinates put a hand on her shoulder -- they were all looking at her with varying levels of sympathy, except Worf, who stood back in the corner obviously enraged and containing it well. 

"Tasha?"

At Will's prompt she yanked her eyes back up to his. "A single Gemenn ran through the crowd around us. It was so startling that he made it all the way past everyone around and when he was within a few meters he threw this -- spear, so hard -- the rest of them jumped on him. There were immediate reactions, from both sides, they were all angry. I don't think it was anything planned -- the individual acted on his own."

Which, if everything he had read were accurate, meant this mission was salvagable. "I want you to get more security officers and meet me in transporter room one. If you are all able to move forward without prejudice, this team plus ten more. I'm going down to continue the mission. Get yourselves cleaned up, you have fifteen minutes."

The caliber of the officers of the _Enterprise_ was obvious in the immediate response -- the team hustled out the door, Yar one of the first ones out in the pursuit of uniforms that weren't stained with blood. Will glanced at the cluster of medical staff around the captain's biobed; the blue glow of a sterile field hovered over the patient, as the doctor worked in concert with her assistants. Setting himself to his task, he turned and strode out of sickbay.

"Riker to bridge," he said in the turbolift.

"Data here, sir."

"I'm going down to continue the mission. The captain and the counselor are in sickbay. Both injured and unable to continue. Continue to monitor and take action as appropriate to protect the _Enterprise_ if necessary."

"Aye sir."

When he reached transporter room one, O'Brien was leaving it. "Wouldn't go in there, sir," the transporter chief said, indicating the room behind him with a thumb. "We're still cleaning it up."

"Transporter room two, then."

O'Brien gave him a nod and turned to walk with him down the corridor. "Is the captain all right? The counselor?"

"They're in surgery. The doctor said the captain would be fine."

O'Brien grimaced. "Good to hear. He was -- well. Worried about her."

If the wailing in sickbay had been any indication, Will could imagine what the chief had witnessed. "They have her in surgery. They wouldn't if there wasn't anything to be done. I'm sure they'll have her in recovery by the time I get back from this. Riker to Yar -- we're in transporter room two," he said as they entered the named room. Will stood with the chief at the console as Yar acknowledged the order, watching O'Brien put in coordinates.

By the time his team started to assemble he had firmly set his mind on the mission, on the information he had on the Gemenn and Norass, and knew he had to keep his focus for the duration. The screaming fear about Deanna that he'd shoved aside repeatedly upon seeing her covered in fresh blood and limp in the hands of medical staff was firmly set in the basement of his memory. What he'd told O'Brien was true. They wouldn't have kept working if there was no hope.

So he decided to believe. He had to have something to keep pushing down the fear.


	9. Chapter 9

Will had to force himself out of bed the following morning. He had endured hours of what amounted to testimony from the Gemenn and the Norass, until he'd called a halt and demanded an eight hour break -- once back on the ship he'd done some further study into the two cultures and attempted to understand what it was they really wanted an independent arbiter to arbitrate, before falling into bed to get a scant four hours of sleep. He inhaled a cup of coffee and something for breakfast, falling back on an egg and cheese sandwich he'd learned to make as a kid taking care of himself in a remote Alaskan community without replicators. He left his quarters, and went first to sickbay.

Crusher was there, also looking tired. "Good morning," she said, smiling wearily. "If you want to see the captain, he's in the intensive care ward. Not that he needs to be. Deanna is recovering from a five hour surgery there, he's visiting. I tried to send him home last night."

"So is he fit for duty, then? The injury looked bad, from where I was standing."

"I'm sure it did. There was indeed a great deal of blood shed." Beverly glanced around the now-clean sickbay. The maintenance crew had done an excellent job. "Most of it was hers. We had to synthesize more to replace it, there are no matches aboard for Betazoid blood. Selar replaced a heart valve and we have to replace one of Deanna's lungs. That will be tomorrow's surgery. We have one cloned and growing rapidly."

Will sighed heavily. "I was afraid she had died."

"She did," Beverly said with a shrug. She crossed her arms and shook her head. "She was dead when they beamed her into sickbay. We put her on life support for the duration of the surgery. When we were able to stop the bleeding and regenerate tissue and bone, then complete the surgery, we had to keep her on life support for another few hours until she stabilized."

"Well. I'm happy to hear she's recovering. I need to speak to the captain."

Beverly waved him toward the door on the left. When he went through he noted that the surgical bay was spotless. The next room was intensive care, and there she was, under a clamshell cover from neck to thigh, her hair swept off to the left in a rough braid. Monitors were on and tracking her life signs. The captain stood at her right shoulder staring down at her face. He glanced at Will when he heard the scuff of a boot on the shining black floor, and it shocked Will all over again to see his captain looking so unlike himself -- he seemed to have aged overnight, looked drawn and depressed and in pain. 

"I'm sorry to bother you, Captain. I wanted to see how you both were doing -- the doctor thinks she'll be all right."

A quiet exhale was Picard's only response. Will stepped up next to him and gazed down at Deanna's face. After a moment Picard asked, "What's going on?"

"I went down after they started your surgery. I explained that I am in command when you are unable and that your injuries were being treated. I took over where you left off. We were almost done with testimonies when I called a halt and got some sleep. We're going back down in less than an hour."

"I should go," Picard murmured.

"The doctor cleared you for duty?"

A wry smile ghosted across the captain's lips. "She did. It turned out that because the point of the blade barely pushed into my sternum, my injury was superficial. Deanna -- " It was as though saying her name overwhelmed him. Picard swayed, blinked a few times, reached up and touched her face with a tenderness that Will had never seen the man show before. 

"Maybe you should stay aboard -- things were going well. They're very focused on behaving now. The Gemenn are being almost subservient to me, now, what happened made a huge impact and then the fact that I came down and took over in your place was not at all what either species would have done. I don't believe we'll have any other issues."

Picard dropped his hand and turned away from the biobed. The captain was back; the soft sadness was gone. "I'd like to join you."

Will blinked. He could have made that an order, but it sounded more like a request. Thinking about the nature of the species he was dealing with, and their reaction to his intervention, he nodded. "That would make another impression, I think. Are you sure you want to do that?" He looked at Deanna's slack face. She seemed pale and too still.

Picard glanced down at himself -- he was wearing some random clothing probably replicated last night when he was allowed to discard whatever the staff had put him in. "She's likely not going to be conscious until after the second surgery. I need to do something."

"Then let's get you in a uniform and head for the transporter room. I'll brief you while we walk."

 

* * *

 

 

The second eight hours was amazing. Will didn't like being pushed aside, generally, but watching Picard at his diplomatic best was worth handing off the reins. The Gemenn agreed to almost anything he suggested, the Norass were listening instead of being demanding as they had been with diplomats in the past. Eventually, gently, the captain got around to requesting the return of Marcus Trevian and the officers who'd been with him. The talks concluded with promises from both sides, and they returned to the _Enterprise_.

"Good job, everyone," Will told the security officers. They were leaving the transporter room and the ten officers with them were starting to scatter in two directions. "You've all earned some rest -- see you on alpha shift in twenty-four hours."

"Thank you, Commander," Tasha exclaimed. She nodded and turned to go once more.

"I'll get us under way, sir. Contact the _Borneo_ and let them know where to pick up their people," Will said.

"Make it so," Picard replied wearily. "I'm going to sickbay."

"You're not feeling well?"

Picard hesitated on the threshhold of the lift -- a group of security officers had already gone on ahead in one, and while they stood there the light went green and the door opened on an empty car. "Exhausted, but I want to see her. She should be out of surgery."

"See you tomorrow." He let the captain take the first lift, and caught the next one. "Bridge."

When he arrived, the ships that had been hovering around the moon with them were dispersing in orderly clusters of four. The main viewer was becoming a star field again. "We're leaving orbit -- set a course for Omicron Theta, Mr. LaForge."

"Aye, sir." LaForge worked at his console, glancing over his shoulder as he did so. "Another successful negotiation?"

"Yes, indeed." Will sat down and gazed at the shifting stars as the ship broke orbit. He watched the shift to warp, and composed his next mission log entry in his head. 

After some time had passed, Data glanced back at Will. "How is Counselor Troi?"

"I was just thinking about going down to sickbay. I understand she had another surgery today. I don't believe she's been conscious, but she's not been on life support."

"Please convey my best wishes, if you speak to her," Data said.

"Yeah, hope she's better soon," Geordi added. 

"I will. You have the bridge, Mr. Data."

Sickbay was quiet. Deanna had been moved into main sickbay, and the captain was standing to one side while Crusher and Ogawa were checking monitors, setting up parameters to sound alarms probably if specific readings went out of normal range.  Deanna was under a blanket now and still unconscious. Ogawa took a moment to rearrange Deanna's hair and gave Crusher a nod, and left sickbay. 

"How is she?" Will asked, approaching the biobed. 

"Stable. She should be coming out of anesthesia any time now." Crusher glanced at the captain. "Both of you look as though you could use a week of sleep. Do I have to order you to get some?"

"I'll go, but if she wakes up I want to be notified," Picard said. 

"I'll tell Selar. She's on the next watch. Because I'm tired, too."

The door opened as if on cue to admit the Vulcan doctor, and after passing along the order, Crusher led the way out and the three of them got in a turbolift together. Will looked across the lift at the doctor, who was watching the captain -- Picard had his eyes closed while the lift rose three decks and traveled laterally for a minute, then opened.

"Good night, Captain," Will said.

His eyes opened and out he strode as if he wasn't tired at all. Will left the lift and stood with Crusher watching him go down the corridor into his quarters. 

"Is he all right?"

Crusher crooked an eyebrow at that. "In what sense? You were with him all day, how did the talks go? I assume well enough that we're on our way to the next mission, but how did he do?"

"He was amazing. Ever been with him on a diplomatic mission?"

"Not on the away team, no. I know it's one of his strengths. The way he handled Deanna's mother was impressive -- she was flirting her best at him, but he was impervious."

Will nodded. Lwaxana had flirted at him -- he couldn't say 'with,' that implied his participation more than he liked -- and he was pretty sure she remembered he was the same Will Riker her daughter had once agreed to marry. It had been a great relief when Lwaxana had departed the _Enterprise_. He'd initially been anxious that she would scream at him again about the wedding that didn't happen, but she'd surprised him.

Crusher patted Will's arm. "See you in the morning, Will." She went down toward her door at a quick clip.

"Say hi to Wes for me -- maybe I'll have a chance to take him to a holodeck tomorrow for some skiing."

He went to his quarters and replicated a beer and a sandwich, and slumped on the couch to eat. When he woke again the following morning with the half-eaten sandwich scattered down his chest and the flat glass of beer on the table, he was hungrier and still tired. A quick verbal check-in with the bridge and he replicated something for breakfast, then took a nap.


	10. Chapter 10

Will bided his time, focused on the survey of the Omicron system, and observed the captain being distracted. He tried not to notice but comments were made, about Picard's visits to sickbay. Will could tell when Deanna finally awakened -- the captain left the ready room at a near-run and didn't say a word leaving the bridge.

He couldn't help it. It had been a long three days of waiting for her to improve, and finally wake up. Will left the bridge as well, headed for sickbay, despite knowing better. 

It wasn't that he expected Deanna to decide to be with him, any more. He was certain that ship had sailed. It wasn't that he didn't want her to be happy, or the captain. He knew there would of course be residual emotions that would eventually subside, that Will intended to allow to die. Except now he had other concerns -- he kept waiting for Picard to wake up, see the reality of his situation, and he wasn't seeing it.

There weren't any demands on their time; surveys of systems were like that, supervising while sciences, astrometrics and sometimes other departments had their jobs to do. But the captain's attention was obviously elsewhere. It wasn't like him, to allow himself to lose focus that way even when the mission was that mundane; it took someone encouraging him to take time away when he could. Will now recognized his own folly -- starting to move toward a relationship with Deanna would have been detrimental to their careers, he decided. Just look at how difficult it was for the captain already.

He came into sickbay and went back to the left, through the surgery to intensive care, and on into the back ward where patients requiring monitoring but given privacy were kept. Deanna was the only one there, curiously. He had expected to find one of the sickbay staff or the captain. She watched him approach with a sad smile.

"Scuttlebutt has it you're awake," he said gently. And took her hand, where it lay at her side. "Told you I should have gone."

"I would have done the same for you. Then you'd be the one traumatized."

His smile vanished. "If I had gone I wouldn't have taken you along."

"Of course you would have. For the same reason he did."

Will's head tilted to the left, and he chewed his lip and removed his hand from hers. "I would have protected you."

"Maybe. I doubt it. Things happened too fast, and you couldn't have predicted what happened any more than any of us who were there might have. I suppose Worf is on a holodeck killing Gemenn soldiers by the dozen?"

"Good guess. He tried to throw himself on his sword in the debriefing, but the captain wouldn't have it. Tasha will be here the instant she knows you're awake, to apologize." Their security chief had been hovering almost as much as the captain.

Deanna rubbed her lips with her thumb. "I guess there might be a little ice cream left? He was feeding me chocolate."

Immediately, his brow furrowed -- why did she have to rub it in? He could only suppose that Picard had been there and left for some reason. "Well. I just wanted to stop in and make sure you were all right."

"Thanks, Will. And congratulations on pulling off the mission. I'm glad everything turned out well -- Beverly said Marcus was rescued, thank you."

He would almost believe that was her way of rubbing that in -- the first time he'd met Marcus, he'd been certain that the smiling idiot had intentions toward her, no matter what she claimed. He'd been angry about her ongoing friendship with the man while they planned a wedding. "All in a day's work." He turned and met the captain on his way out, stepping around Jean-Luc with a nod, and left the room.

The visit had been unsettling and he had to go for a walk and process it. She was obviously not quite herself just yet, after all she'd been through; four days of sedation could muddy anyone's mind. She would have done the same for him, she said. Would have taken a spear through the chest for any of her friends, she meant. He didn't doubt that. He would do the same, given the chance, after all. 

But it bothered him that she was so dismissive of him. He understood, but.

He spent time on the bridge, and as the ship moved through the system collecting data, scanning the Omicron Theta system and all its satellites, Will decided to take a moment to check in with Deanna.

No one paid much attention to him, as he went into sickbay and made his way back to see her. She was sitting up, reading a book -- an actual paper book. So, likely something the captain had brought her.

"A good book?" he asked lightly, hoping to start off on the right foot this time.

Deanna closed it and put it down, folding her hands on the cover. "I like it. You're back already?"

"It was a short away mission. Feeling better?"

"Tired, and feeling short of breath most of the time, and it hurts to breathe too deeply. But I guess they had to replace a lung."

He paused, at a loss for a moment. "You were dead, after all." Surely they had told her that.

"Yes," she said sadly. "It was an odd sensation. It's always an odd sensation."

Somehow he'd never really thought about her being able to sense people dying. "It must have been terrible."

"It wasn't as painful as I expected. I actually don't remember much about it."

He had the distinct impression she wasn't being forthcoming. "Anything I can do to help? Need someone to talk to?"

She smiled, and for a few seconds he thought things might be starting to improve. But she said, "Thank you, Will. I think I'll be all right, actually. I'm more concerned about the captain. He's having a difficult time with it."

"I've noticed," WIll said faintly.

"So are you," she continued.

He frowned. "I don't really feel that I'm the one to be concerned about, at this point. You've made your desires quite clear."

She was silent, looking at him with an undecipherable expression. Will knew she likely found his anger and frustration upsetting, but he was powerless to do anything about that, and he would be damned if he apologized for his feelings.

"You let me know if you need anything," he said after an uncomfortable pause. Putting a hand on her arm briefly, Will turned to go. "I'll check on you later."

It occured to him as he went back to the bridge that she might have been speaking as the ship's counselor, concerned for his mental health. But that could be discussed later. This had to be sorted out.

That, too, confirmed that he wouldn't have been able to manage the dual relationship, had she been willing to try it. Now it remained to figure out how to discuss it with her, to get her to understand the mistake of attempting it with the captain. 

 

* * *

 

Will visited one more time while she was still in sickbay, and it was just as awkward as the last. He waited until she'd been discharged to attempt to see her again. Perhaps they would be able to talk more openly outside sickbay.  Riding in the lift, he asked the computer where she was. As expected she was in her quarters. He stopped at her door and touched the panel -- and waited. And waited. 

The door opened, finally. "Sorry, I was in a bath," she said, hugging the robe around herself. As he came in, she went to sit on the chair carefully. "How was the away mission? You did go, I gather?"

Will nodded and sat on the couch -- he planted his elbows on his knees as he did when preoccupied. "We found something -- it looks like a copy of Data."

"Oh," she exclaimed. "You mean another Data, or another android?"

"Hard to say. They look alike. Argyle is working on it with Dr. Crusher. How are you?"

"I'm as well as I was the last time we spoke. Happier now that I'm not in sickbay. They don't have bathtubs. And my bed is much more comfortable than theirs." She blinked at his moment of surprise. Smiled, gave him something to be startled about with a giggle.

"You seem happier," he commented. He looked away at the floor, then around the room. "How long?"

"I'm sorry?"

"How long have you been with him?" He'd intended to make it a curious question asked of a friend, but didn't expect a resurgence of the frustration he'd felt with the situation.

Deanna stopped smiling, at that. "Why would I even tell you anything about it?"

"Friends tell each other -- "

"The only reason you want to know is to justify your own self-righteous anger," she blurted. "You're angry about it. You can stop being like this any time now. Your feelings aren't going to change anything, any more than they would have the week after you came aboard. You told me what you wanted, and I discovered that I agreed with that wholeheartedly -- I prefer keeping everything professional. I like my friendship with you just as it is. Unless you're going to keep being angry, force me to back away out of self preservation. I want to be friends, Will. That hasn't changed, and it won't change unless you make it impossible."

He took a deep breath, at least, before starting again. Not out of anger, now -- he was frustrated, true. But he was also convinced he was right. He'd been watching Picard be caught up in concern for her for days. "You're asking me to watch friends compromise their careers, Deanna."

"I was an officer when I stood in front of him to protect him," she exclaimed. "What compromise are you talking about? Are you making the case that he wasn't taking me along because he felt my skills would contribute to the mission? Because that's not true, either. I remember the briefing -- your wording was ambiguous but you weren't telling him he couldn't go, you were telling him I shouldn't go -- weren't you? I don't think he's the one with the problem."

"I've taken you on away missions -- "

"Will," she exclaimed, exasperated. "Honestly, I understand. I know how you feel."

He was sure that she didn't understand. It was a bit like arguing with her mother, emotional judo, but at least she would let him speak where Lwaxana would simply overpower her opponent with verbage. "It was too dangerous," he exclaimed. "I would have taken security only, they were all trained for battle. I wouldn't have taken crew without that training."

"We didn't go there to fight," she shot back angrily.

"I was right about it, wasn't I? They attacked us. They killed you!" 

He was shocked when Deanna shot out of the chair, twisting away to pace angrily, and immediately cried out a little -- she was wincing and gasping, and swayed slightly then she lost her balance, stumbling against the footstool. Will was at her side immediately. She moved away from him, turning and twisting again, and made another distressed noise and held herself tightly. It was obvious she wasn't quite healed yet.

"You're in pain, let me take you to sickbay," he said urgently. "Deanna, please!"

"I'm sick of having the same conversation we had when I was supposed to marry Wyatt. You don't get to dictate the terms of my career or my relationships," she exclaimed. He heard the telltale throb of tears in her voice. "I followed orders, Will. I did what I was supposed to do. I don't understand why you have a problem with us."

She stumbled for the door and out into the corridor, of course not giving him a chance to explain anything further, and ran into the captain. Of course, Will thought, standing in the open door staring at them and feeling more frustration yet.

Picard caught her by the shoulders, and she stood there, her robe falling open, her arms around her aching ribs and one hand pressing her shoulder. For a moment they stared at each other. Will wondered if there weren't some silent communication between them -- they had that look about them, a sort of focus inward, that suggested it.

"I'm going to sickbay," she announced tearfully. "I was being stupid. Something's torn."

"You were supposed to be resting -- what happened?" Picard slipped an arm around her and tucked his hand under her arm, as if it were something he did every day. 

"I got up too fast," she said. "Hurts." 

"Let's go, then."

"Deanna," Will said, pleading now. But she took a step and cried out -- it was clear that whatever had happened, she wasn't in any condition to talk any more.

"I don't think I can walk without pain," she confessed.

"Picard to transporter room. Site to site transport, two people, to sickbay."

Will watched them dematerialize, and stood for a moment in frustrated dismay. What to do? If he left it, let it go, didn't follow up, she would continue to be angry at him. It might lead to the captain being prejudiced unduly against him. While he was certain Picard would never consciously allow such emotional influences to affect him on duty, there were reasons Starfleet had an entire class on interpersonal relationships with other officers and all the snares and ethical dilemmas inherent in them. 

If he did go, he might enrage her further. But at least he would be able to apologize. And he would see that she was all right... he hadn't expected to see her exhibit such pain after days in sickbay.

He arrived in sickbay a few minutes later, and noticed that Picard was watching him come in, wary and standing away from the biobed he'd been leaning on. Will kept his distance.

"Is she going to be all right?"

Beverly shot him a look of frustration, making it clear she'd been told what happened. "She'll be fine. It's painful, it'll probably take another day or two longer than it would have to heal, but she'll be back in class learning karate soon enough."

Will drooped a little. "I'm sorry, Deanna."

"Come talk to me when you're not angry. I don't want to argue with you again." Deanna sighed as Beverly closed the clamshell over her again. "I hate these things."

Will turned and left. He caught a little of Beverly teasing Deanna, and then the doors closed behind him. Too agitated to sit on the bridge, he checked in remotely and informed the officer of the watch, LaForge, that he would check in again in an hour, then went for a long walk on a lower deck.

As he came back to deck ten, he decided to check in on Data and the other android. They were in one of the labs, and when he approached another door opened and Randi MacAvoy came out. 

"Hello, Commander," she said cheerily. Her warm brown eyes met his, and she slowed up. "Is everything all right?"

"Technically. I have a lot on my mind, though. How's everything going?"

She rolled her eyes. "In my department everything's fine. I know there's some excitement going on over there," she said, waving at the door of the lab he'd been heading into. "Something they found on the planet. Guess that's what you're here to check on?"

"A good guess." Will couldn't help smiling at her. "Did you ever finish that project?" She'd mentioned a technical sounding assignment, something about fine-tuning the sensor array to study a broader range of radiation, the better to analyze the stars they encountered. Astrophysics was active in every system they visited.

"I did. We're now running scans of Omicron's star." She studied him anew. "You're really tired. I was going to ask if you were up for some pool in Ten Forward after shift, but maybe you should get some sleep instead."

"We'll see how the day goes," he said. "See you later."

She nodded and strode onward, and he went into the lab to find that the engineer and the rest of his team had assembled the android, and was introduced to Data's "brother," Lore.

 

 


End file.
